AT THE LEFT EDGE FRONTING IN MEDIEVAL FRENCH EMBEDDED CLAUSES
Doctoral thesis for obtaining the academic degree Doctor of Philosophy (Dr. phil.)
submitted by
Rahn, Christine Anna
at the
Faculty of Humanities
Department of Linguistics
Konstanz, 2016
Konstanzer Online-Publikations-System (KOPS) URL: http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bsz:352-2-13c58yxn1e0d8
Date of the oral examination: June 10, 2016 First Referee: Prof. Dr. Georg A. Kaiser Second Referee: Prof. Dr. Pierre Larrivée Third Referee: Prof. Dr. Susann Fischer
Acknowledgements
First and foremost, I would like to thank Georg A. Kaiser and Pierre Larrivée for all their support throughout my graduate career: It was a real privilege to have both of you as Ph.D. supervisors. I would not have reached the end (or maybe the beginning) of this adventure without your scientific expertise and continuous guidance, your encouragement, your teasing, and your patience. Thank you for believing in me, and for assisting me in administrative calamities during the cotuelle procedure.
The chairperson and oral examiner, Regine Eckardt, and the external referee, Susann Fischer, completed my dissertation committee. Thank you for helping me shape my ideas by discussing the data and possible pragmatic and syntactic analyses.
The present study has also greatly benefitted from discussions with professors, colleagues and fellow Ph.D. students at the University of Konstanz and the University of Caen. Thank you for your comments and suggestions, your passion, and for teaching me how to cultivate my curiosity for research: Ellen Brandner, Adeline Patard, Josef Bayer, Michael Zimmermann, Catrine Bang Nilsen, Maialen Iraola Azpiroz, Stefano Quaglia, Janina Reinhardt, Hanna Steinunn Þorleifsdóttir, and all members of the department of Linguistics in Konstanz and the CRISCO research centre in Caen.
During my year in Caen, I was lucky to meet friends who shared lunch times, tea breaks, apéros dinatoires, afternoons at the beach, and special moments with me. Takk, grazie, merci, and obrigada infinitamente: Catrine, Marco, Adrien, Adeline, Lidi, Felipe and Gael. Merci également, Liliane et Michel, pour les petites pauses café et votre soutien.
Danke an die Menschen vom See und anderswo für eure Freundschaft: Steffi, Lisa, Matthäus, Daniela, Tobi, Charlotte und Co, Jo, Jasmin, Verena, María, Eugen, Peggy, Gitta, Victor, Simon, Laurenz, Helena, Anette, Sebastian, Philipp, Johanna, Stefan, Irmgard und Bodo.
Merci à mes Ory pour tout: Cécile, Patricia et Marie-Madeleine.
Danke an meine Eltern für ihre jahrelange Unterstützung, den Glauben und eine gute Portion Skepsis, danke an Philipp für das Layout und die „Quäl dich“-Rufe von der Seitenlinie.
So. Bleibt nur noch: Danke, Herr Rahn, für Geduld und Nervenstärke und die Unterstützung in allem!!!
Support for this work was partly provided by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) with an one-year PhD students grant for the stay in Caen.
III
Table of content Page Acknowledgements ...... III 1. Introduction ...... 1 2. Corpus and methodology ...... 5 2.1 The corpus ...... 5 2.1.1 Research on historical texts ...... 5 2.1.1.1 The philological issue ...... 5 2.1.1.2 Existing on-line corpora ...... 7 2.1.2 The present corpus: Lettres de rémission ...... 9 2.1.2.1 The legal system in France and Normandy in the 14th and 15th century ……………………………………………………………………..9 2.1.2.2 Genre ...... 13 2.1.2.3 The present corpus ...... 15 2.1.2.3.1 Socio-political reflections ...... 15 2.1.2.3.2 Transmission and edition ...... 17 2.1.2.3.3 Selection criteria ...... 19 2.1.2.4 Structure and linguistic interest of LDR ...... 21 2.1.2.4.1 Textual characteristics ...... 21 2.1.2.4.2 Linguistic interest of LDR ...... 26 2.2 Methodology ...... 29 2.2.1 Syntactic annotation ...... 30 2.2.1.1 Selected subordinate clause types and their coding ...... 30 2.2.1.2 The subordinate item and the embedded verb ...... 33 2.2.1.3 The embedded subject and its position ...... 34 2.2.1.4 Fronted elements ...... 34 2.2.2 Pragmatic annotation ...... 34 2.2.2.1 Pragmatic annotation of the external IS ...... 36 2.2.2.2 Pragmatic annotation of the internal IS ...... 37 2.2.2.3 Decision tree ...... 39 2.2.3 Coding the corpus ...... 41 2.2.3.1 Syntactic annotation of LDR 1431, 201 ...... 42 2.2.3.2 Pragmatic annotation ...... 50 2.2.4 Statistical tests ...... 53 3. Description and results ...... 55 3.1 Structural properties ...... 55 3.1.1 Relative clauses ...... 57 3.1.1.1 Typology of relative clause types ...... 57
IV
3.1.1.2 Relative heads ...... 59 3.1.1.3 Relative clause item ...... 63 3.1.1.4 Fronted elements in relative clauses ...... 67 3.1.2 Comparative clauses ...... 70 3.1.2.1 Comparative clause types ...... 70 3.1.2.2 Comparative antecedent ...... 71 3.1.2.3 Subordinate item in comparative clauses ...... 73 3.1.2.4 Subjects in comparative clauses ...... 75 3.1.2.5 Fronted elements in comparative clauses ...... 76 3.1.3 Fronting in further subordinate contexts ...... 79 3.1.4 Summary...... 83 3.2 Functional properties: Fronted elements ...... 86 3.2.1 Coding: ambiguous cases and other difficulties ...... 87 3.2.2 Results: relative clauses ...... 92 3.2.3 Results: comparative clauses ...... 94 3.2.4 Results: other subordinate contexts ...... 96 3.2.5 Revising the results: degree of reliance ...... 98 3.3 Summary and statistical analyses ...... 101 4. Analysis ...... 102 4.1 Previous research ...... 102 4.1.1 On embedded clauses ...... 102 4.1.1.1 Information-structural approaches ...... 102 4.1.1.2 Embedded left-periphery in Latin and Old Romance ...... 107 4.1.1.3 Status of subordinate clause items in Medieval French ...... 115 4.1.2 On “Stylistic Fronting” ...... 122 4.1.2.1 Information-structural evaluation ...... 125 4.1.2.2 Syntactic properties ...... 128 4.1.2.3 Analyses ...... 135 4.2 Results and discussion: the data information-structurally reconsidered ...... 146 4.2.1 Krifka’s basic notions on information structure ...... 147 4.2.2 Frame setters and modifiers...... 150 4.2.2.1 Temporal frame ...... 150 4.2.2.2 Delimiting cause ...... 152 4.2.2.3 Passive agents ...... 152 4.2.2.4 Spatial frame ...... 153 4.2.2.5 Manner ...... 154
V
4.2.2.6 Sentence adverbs ...... 156 4.2.2.7 Summary ...... 157 4.2.3 Topics ...... 157 4.2.4 Foci ...... 165 4.2.4.1 Basic information focus ...... 165 4.2.4.2 Focus: contrast and parallels ...... 167 4.2.4.3 Verum focus ...... 170 4.2.4.4 Summary ...... 180 4.2.5 Other cases...... 181 4.2.5.1 Droit ...... 181 4.2.5.2 Presence ...... 183 4.2.5.3 bon ...... 185 4.2.6 Summary...... 186 4.3 Syntactic analysis ...... 188 4.3.1 Other subordinate contexts ...... 188 4.3.1.1 Adverbs and adverbials ...... 189 4.3.1.2 Foci ...... 195 4.3.1.3 Topics ...... 196 4.3.2 Relative clauses and comparative clauses ...... 200 4.3.2.1 Adverbs and adverbials ...... 201 4.3.2.2 Foci ...... 205 4.3.3 Matching the analyses and remaining issues ...... 213 5. Summary and conclusions ...... 219 Zusammenfassung ...... 224 Résumé ...... 230 Bibliography ...... 236 On-line References ...... 251 Appendix A. Lettres de rémissions 1357 – 1360 ...... 252 Appendix B. Decision tree for information-structural annotation ...... 278
VI 1. Introduction 1
1. Introduction
The purpose of this submitted thesis is to offer new insights into the composition of the left edge in subordinate clauses in Medieval French, and into the nature of fronting types found in subordinate clauses as illustrated in (1).
(1) pour faire ce que fait n’avoient à l’aultre fois
to do what done NEG.had.3PL the other time ‘to do what they haven’t done the last time’ (Le Bel 175)
For Medieval French, the optional fronting of infinitives and participles to the left of the finite verb in embedded clauses is already noted by Foulet (1921). A prominent explanation is to assume interferences with the Latin word order and thus to analyse structures like (1) as a case of residual OV word order (Buridant 2000, Geisler 1982). If this assumption is correct, we should not expect to find constituents after the finite verb. However, as illustrated in (1), there are constituents that do occur to the right of the finite verb.
Within the generative framework, Cardinaletti and Roberts (1990/2002) were the first to analyse word orders as in (1) as instances of Stylistic Fronting. This term was first used by Maling (1980/1990) to describe occurrences of fronting in embedded clauses in Icelandic, where a constituent of the VP – i.e. not only infinitives and participles, but also objects, predicative expressions, adjectives and (negation) adverbs – appears to be moved to unfilled subject positions. Cardinaletti and Roberts (1990/2002) compared the Icelandic data to constructions as (1) in Old Romance varieties and established the application of the notion Stylistic Fronting for Romance as well. Ever since, numerous studies have investigated Stylistic Fronting in Scandinavian and Old Romance languages, regarding the common premises of Stylistic Fronting in these languages, the differences between it and other types of A’- movement (focus movement, topicalization), and the relevance of information-structural properties of Stylistic Fronting with respect to its syntactic analysis.
Meanwhile, several controversies challenge these analyses. First, a central issue concerns the question whether Stylistic Fronting is restricted in both Icelandic and Old Romance to cases like (1) and therefore requires a “subject gap”, i.e. either a non-overt subject or a subject realized by a relative clause item. For Medieval French, Labelle and Hirschbühler (2014a,b) offer a
1. Introduction 2 different analysis and take combinations of fronted elements and subjects as in (2) to be variants of (1).
(2) veant que nosdiz adverseres a grant puissance estoient par tout le pais
seeing COMP our adversaries at major power were in the country ‘seeing that our adversaries had major power in the whole country’ (LDR 1431,203)
Hence, Labelle and Hirschbühler (2014a,b) adopt the term Leftward Stylistic Displacement or Déplacement stylistique in order to differentiate between Stylistic Fronting in Icelandic and the fronting occurrences in Medieval Romance. In the present study, the term “Stylistic Fronting” is used to refer to studies that investigate Stylistic Fronting and Leftward Stylistic Displacement and, hence, structures as (1) and (2).
Second, from a syntactic point of view, further issues are contested. While Maling (1980/1990) takes “Stylistic Fronting” to be limited to embedded contexts, all studies on Old Romance (Benincà 2006; Cardinaletti 2003; Cardinaletti and Roberts 1990/2002; Fischer 2010, 2014; Fischer and Alexiadou 2001; Franco 2009, 2012; Egerland 2011, 2013; Fontana 1993; Mathieu 2006, 2013; Salvesen 2011, among others) assume that the phenomenon is possible in both, main and embedded contexts. One might then wonder whether these structures are instances of V2, since V2 in main clauses is one of the most prominent properties discussed for Medieval French as suggested by Adams (1987), Benincà (2006), Roberts (1993) or Vance (1997), among others, and challenged by Kaiser (2002), Rinke and Meisel (2009) and Sitaridou (2012), among others. Furthermore, as there are embedded clause types that exhibit Main Clause Phenomena such as V2 (Heycock 2006, among many others), one could then cut the analysis of structures in (1) and (2) down on an analysis as a variant of V2. However, we do also find similar fronting contexts in comparative and relative clauses, for which Main Clause Phenomena and thus V2, are generally assumed to be excluded (Heycock 2006, Haegeman 2012). An occurrence of fronting in a relative clause is given in (3), taken from Cardinaletti and Roberts (1990/2002: 129).
(3) Por l’esperance qu’an lui ont
for the hope which.in him have.3PL ‘For the hope which they have in him’
1. Introduction 3
In order to avoid interferences with V2 contexts and to verify if there are two different phenomena, namely V2 and “Stylistic Fronting”, this study will focus on fronting contexts in relative and comparative clauses. For these embedded clauses, an extensive corpus analysis is provided on both clauses with and without constituents other than a subject or a clitic that precede the finite verb and thus are situated at the left edge. Other subordinate contexts that imply constituents other than a subject or a clitic to the left of the finite verb will be taken into account in order to allow for comparison between both groups.
Furthermore, a central question in the debate is the pragmatic motivation of the fronted elements. The different analyses and hypotheses made on “Stylistic Fronting” in Medieval French depend decisively on the idea of the information-structural property of the fronted elements. Approaches that favour a neutral pragmatic value of stylistically fronted elements encounter major difficulties with respect to the question what triggers the fronting (Labelle 2007, Salvesen 2011, Labelle and Hirschbühler in press). In contrast, the two analyses that take a pragmatic value into account come to opposite conclusions which are based, however, on very similar basic observations on the anaphoricity of stylistically fronted elements (Mathieu 2006, 2013; Fischer 2010, 2014). Hence, the completion of a consistent pragmatic analysis of the phenomenon appears to be central to further work on the matter.
The present study looks into two matters. First, it aims at providing an extensive description of the constituents other than a subject or a clitic that are found at the left edge of relative, comparative and other subordinate contexts in Medieval French. Second, it proposes an analysis of the information-structural and syntactic motivation of structures such as (1), (2) and (3).
In order to allow for a consistent analysis of the information structure of the constituents in question, this study is based on its own corpus composed of Lettres de rémission (remission letters) from the 14th and 15th century. The concentration on documents of the same genre allows us to avoid ambiguities due to the ascertained lack of standardization even for texts written in the same Medieval French dialect (Völker 2003).
The study itself is divided into three chapters. The first two chapters are written from a descriptive point of view. Chapter 2 introduces the corpus and the methodology used for its annotation. Chapter 3 provides the description of the data with respect to the distribution and frequency of fronting contexts. Finally, chapter 4 turns to the analysis of the information
1. Introduction 4 structure and the syntax of fronting contexts by giving an extensive overview of the previous research matter on the matter before turning to the pragmatic and syntactic analyses.
Chapter 2. Corpus and methodology 5
2. Corpus and methodology
The present chapter introduces the data basis on which these studies rely. It is divided in to main sections. First, the corpus of texts on which the analyses are based is introduced. The criteria to select Lettres de rémission as genre are outlined and the genre is situated in its historical, socio-political and linguistic context. The second section focuses on the methodology used for the annotation of the data. The annotation process is detailed and, based on a survey of previous research, the established procedure is justified. Finally, the statistical test used is commented on and some of the previously introduced categories are readjusted.
2.1 The corpus
The present section addresses what Petrova and Solf (2009: 122) call “the philological issue” in research on historical texts. This relates to the extent to which the quality of the chosen data is representative, reliable, and authentic for the research issues that are addressed. In other terms, what are the prerequisites that a corpus of historical texts needs to fulfil specific research purposes?
The chapter is divided into two main sections. In the first one, the “philological issue” is explored by giving an overview of criteria discussed to be crucial, and combine those approaches with the specific aims of the present study. Furthermore, already existing corpora of Medieval French are presented in order to assess whether, and to what extent these corpora are convergent with our research objectives. The second section introduces the corpus on which the present work is based. After a short presentation of its context, the textual genre is characterized in a more general way so as to explain its linguistic interest and how it meets the criteria established previously.
2.1.1 Research on historical texts
2.1.1.1 The philological issue
A first survey of the literature reveals various issues that are addressed in this context. Some of them being unanimously accepted, others seem to give rise to controversies. With respect to the former, it is general consent that the sufficient amount of data, i.e. according to most authors a “certain length of the text” (Zimmermann 2014: 27), is a condition sine qua non for research on the history of a language is. Concerning the latter, one might take as an example what can
Chapter 2. Corpus and methodology 6 be called the discussion of “accessibility” or “material state” of the text. This refers to the need for an edited text versus the preference of a non-edited version respectively the need to work on manuscripts rather than editions. The term “need” anticipates a crucial – and far from trivial – point of the whole discussion that has to be kept in mind: there is not (yet) a canonical way to handle (historical) corpora because the design of a corpus corresponds essentially to the research purposes for which it is created. Recall that the essential aim of my study is to understand the nature of the phenomenon of “Stylistic Fronting” in embedded contexts in relation to information structure which serves as basis for the syntactic modelling of the data. As a first consequence the total amount of data needs to be large, since the proportion of relative and comparative clauses is expected to be low. Thus, for the present study, only edited texts can be taken into account in order to facilitate the digitalization and the coding of the data. A second consequence is that the necessary syntactical and information-structural annotations entail the following requirements on the texts that are used. On the one hand, verse texts must be excluded since the fronting of elements can be due to metrical instead of syntactical constraints and therefore may falsify the occurrence of fronting. On the other hand, the texts have to be available as a whole in order to allow the pragmatic-contextual annotation of the data.1 Third, since variation in the data may rely not only on language change across time, but also on other instances2, it is indispensable to adjust the selection of texts as much as possible to linguistic coherence. Zimmermann (2014) suggests that texts need to be written in one dialect and to contain as high an amount of direct speech as possible. For the 14th and 15th century, it can be observed that texts written in the same French dialect varied considerably due to the lack of standardization, be it intra-speaker or inter-speaker-variation (Völker 2003). Consequently, texts are preferred that belong to the same genre, that can be dated and located, and whose scribes can be identified. The focus is on legal texts since, according to Balon and Larrivée (2014), they generally provide – in contrast to literary texts on which research on French is predominantly based3 –the required characteristics: “Datés, localisés, avec un auteur souvent identifié, rarement réécrits, d’une édition plus près de la lettre” (Balon and Larrivée 2014: 4-5). Finally, there is still the question of “accessibility” that was briefly touched upon before. In
1 See the second part of the present chapter for more details on the principles of annotation. 2 Cf. the part on the “linguistic interest of LDR” in this chapter, and Koch and Oesterreicher (1985, 1994) for the different dimensions of linguistic variation. 3 Even though, as Balon and Larrivée (2014) observe, the number of diachronic studies based on French legal texts increased during the last decade, cf. Völker (2003, 2007), Wirth-Jaillard (2014), Ingham and Larrivée (2015).
Chapter 2. Corpus and methodology 7 fact, the potential contradictions between the above-mentioned needs are negligible. The common demand is the “uniform depiction of any possible evolution of the language” (Zimmermann 2014: 26). While Stanovaïa (2003) insists on the fundamental difference between the text, i.e. what is commonly called archetype, and the manuscripts as the only matter of study directly accessible due to the gap between their respective records, Zimmerman (2014) suggests the use of elaborated editions based on one single manuscript, which should not be written more than 50 years later than the original document. Accordingly, one needs to check in each case individually whether the existing editions can meet the essential editorial requirements that Völker (2003) postulates, for instance, and reflect on possible deviancies overtly.4 In doing so, one notices the existing divergences between texts and manuscripts as Stanovaïa (2003) puts it.
To sum up, the aim of my study requires the use of edited or even already digitalized texts that have to be coded subsequently. The first option would be to resort to already existing annotated corpora covering the investigated time frame (14th and 15th century).
In the next section, a survey of freely accessible corpora of Medieval French is given which allow on-line queries, and it is considered whether and to what extent they benefit the present work and conform to the here established requirements, namely by allowing to base queries on entire legal texts that are dated, can be located, and match the above-mentioned edition criteria. If possible, further preference will be given to corpora that are annotated syntactically and/or information-structurally.
2.1.1.2 Existing on-line corpora
The Consortium international pour les corpus de français médiéval5 was founded in 2004 by seven research institutes, the University of Ottawa, the École Normale Supérieure of Lyon, the University of Stuttgart, the University of Zürich, the research centre ATILF, Aberystwyth University and the École nationale des chartes. It hosts an Internet portal that assembles information on corpora of Medieval French such as a bibliography, suggestions for, and examples of corpora research in practice (transcription, design, description, coding and
4 With respect to the handling of complex tradition contexts in historical sciences, cf. Daniel (2006) for an introduction. 5 For the web presence of the Consortium international pour les corpus de français medieval and the corpora mentioned in the following please consider the bibliography.
Chapter 2. Corpus and methodology 8 categorization of corpora), a mailing list, and links to the online-corpora proposed by its members. All corpora are composed of different genres and allow doing queries via on-line query masks. Apart from literary and hagiographic texts, some include also chronicles, legal or scientific texts. The query facilities that the different corpora provide for users depend on the purpose for which the different corpora had been designed initially. For instance, there are two corpora that were used in order to establish dictionaries, namely the Base textuelle du Moyen Français used as fundament of the Dictionnaire du Moyen Français (DMF), the Anglo-Norman On-Line Hub for the Anglo-Norman Dictionary and the Base textuelle du Dictionnaire Électronique de Chrétien de Troyes. Both provide an access to the data base and partially allow searching for a single word or a sequence of words and showing the results in its context. Furthermore, the DMF provides the possibility to analyse verbal morphology and its spelling whereas the Anglo-Norman On-Line Hub and the Textes de Français Ancien database allow searching for concordances. However, the facilities of these corpora did not meet the expectations with regard to the entirety of legal texts, the editions used, and the possibility to situate the respective texts. For the purpose of the present work, corpora that allow searching for syntactic criteria and that provide full access to the texts used were of particular interest, since they would facilitate the research. With respect to Medieval French, there are two projects that provide syntactic annotation of the data. On the one hand, the Syntactic Reference Corpus of Medieval French, directed by Sophie Prévost and Achim Stein, which consists of syntactically annotated parts of two text corpora of Medieval French, namely the Base de Français Médiéval and the Nouveau Corpus d'Amsterdam. The texts here annotated mainly consist of literary texts and some hagiographic texts as well as of one legal text (Serments de Strasbourg) dating from the 9th to the 13th century of which the majority is written in verse. Hence, the present corpus does not meet the criteria established above, either, above all with respect to the time frame. On the other hand, there is the corpus Modéliser le changement: les voies du français, which comprises texts from the Middle Ages to the 18th century. Some parts of it are identical to parts of other corpora among which the Base de français medieval. According to Martineau (2008), the corpus covers different dialects and includes, for the medieval part at least, meta-textual data and information about the scribe. She points out that regardless of this information, the corpus is characterized by a certain heterogeneity due to the availability of the texts and to different text editions. Apparently, the corpus consists of both literary and non-literary texts as queries after registration show. With respect to legal texts, the corpus includes four texts altogether, of which two are from the 15th century, both from the
Chapter 2. Corpus and methodology 9 region of Paris.6 There is no legal text that covers the 14th century. With regard to the edition, additional information about the edition was available for one text only, whereas for the second one no information could be found.
To conclude, the present review of already existing corpora shows that none of the corpora could meet the criteria established above. Either, the texts were not available as a whole and queries could not satisfy our needs, or the time frame and the available genre did not correspond to our demands. Hence, I decided to refer to a digitalized corpus that meets the above-mentioned requirements, by including legal texts of a delimited region and covering the 14th and 15th century.
2.1.2 The present corpus: Lettres de rémission
The present corpus is based on selected Lettres de rémission (LDR). These remission letters are part of the corpus Textes légaux anciens de Normandie hosted by the research centre CRISCO at the University of Caen Basse-Normandie. 7 It covers two periods: the first part from 1357 to 1360 and the second from 1423 to 1433. First, a short introduction into the legal system in Normandy France during the Hundred Years’ War is given. Next, the generic properties of LDR are introduced. Subsequently, the selected corpus is presented. It is shown how socio-political events are reflected in the LDR, the context of transmission and of edition of the sources is detailed and the criteria for choosing the specific letters are explained which the present corpus is based on. Finally, linguistic peculiarities of LDR and their interest for a linguistic study are discussed.
2.1.2.1 The legal system in France and Normandy in the 14th and 15th century
The judiciary system in medieval France is complex, due among others to its Roman heritage, and the influence of German and other tribes as a result of the Völkerwanderung, i.e. the barbarian invasions. Medieval French law is usually described as twofold along a line between Bordeaux and Lyon: the southern part being influenced exclusively by the Roman law, the
6 On the one hand, the formularies of the royal chancellery from 1422 and, on the other hand, the summations of the Parlement de Paris from 1423. 7 Cf. http://www.crisco.unicaen.fr/Francais-legal-ancien-de-Normandie.html, last access: 25th March 2015,14:23.
Chapter 2. Corpus and methodology 10 northern one by customary law.8 The Norman customary law, for instance, applied to other regions, too (Guyotjeannin 2005). However, Hilaire (1994) adjusts the supposition of strict separation: in both cases, he observes influences of the respective other system. A similar diversity can be noted if one takes a closer look at the function of legal instruments. A ban against a person, a form of outlawry, can, for instance, be seen as a legitimation of power, a possible source of income for the ruler since the banned person’s property is generally confiscated, or as mechanism to control the society and to maintain the public order (Billoré 2012 et al.). Based on these potential implications, one retraces that justice was nascent and in constant change throughout the Middle Ages. These observations lead Billoré et al. (2012: 11) to the conclusion that medieval justice cannot be generalised and that jurisdictions were varying according to the law in use. The following section, therefore, focuses on French royal justice in the Late Middle Ages, its functions and its players by paying special attention to Norman particularities.9
In the Middle Ages royal justice was conceived as justice accomplished in the name of God. Justice was grounded upon the idea that a crime had to be compensated in order to prevent the victims’ families from taking personal revenge. For that reason, the punishment essentially consisted of payment to the victim’s relatives. It could be completed by supplementary punishments to the benefit of the king – such as fine, seizure – or of the society – public penance, pilgrimage, physical penalty, ban, or death penalty. The three latter entailed severe consequences for the convicted persons and were tantamount to social exclusion. There were two possibilities to avoid punishment, both of them only accessible to people who could afford the payment of relevant sums. The first step was to make an objection at a superior royal instance by claiming one’s innocence, and the final possibility was to make a request for pardon. The latter and its special conditions are delt with further down. First, the former and the operative judiciary system in Medieval France are looked into.
In the Early Middle Ages, the royal tribunal was closely linked to the king. It followed the court itinerary, but, subsequently, royal power lost its influence and jurisdiction was either taken over
8 The original tradition of the German tribes to apply the law according to the clanship of a delinquent was abandoned in favour of the application of the law corresponding to territories (Billoré et al. 2012). Normative texts of customary law are of interest to linguistic research, since they were recorded in the vernacular relatively early (in comparison to other legal documents). 9 In accord with the purpose of the present work, aspects of royal justice that did not exist in Normandy are not mentioned (Billoré et al. 2012). The justice seigneuriale, municipale and ecclésiasitique are also left aside. The following parts are essentially based on Billoré et al. (2012).
Chapter 2. Corpus and methodology 11 by local authorities or overridden by feuds. From the 13th century onwards, the creation of administrative structures reinforced royal influence on justice and resulted in an approach between the king and his subjects. Justice settled in all parts of the kingdom and still emanated from the king who was represented by local royal agents. In the following bottom-up description the focus is on jurisdictions in use in Normandy. Contrary to other regions, Norman bailiffs and viscounts held court on behalf of the king and complemented each other. The bailiffs and their deputies, the lieutenants, were in charge of criminal cases and civil actions involving probate disputes, noblemen and fiefs. The viscounts judged common causes. Both judged trial courts and were responsible for the procedure involving requests for pardon10. On a regular basis the French bailiffs were bound to report to the Parlement de Paris. The latter was created as a detached royal court to process legal matters. It therefore functioned as the appellate court for all lower royal instances and was composed of three divisions: the Grand- chambre, the chamber d’enquête ‘chamber of inquiry’ and the chambre de requête ‘chamber of request’. The chambre de requête was assigned with appeals and ordered letters. The chambre d’enquête prepared the preliminary proceedings for the Grand-chambre which was entrusted with the judgments. Shortly after its creation, the Parlement de Paris suffered from an overload due to the numerous appeals lodged. As a result, court dates were organized in the provinces. In Normandy the Échiquier assumed this function and held court dates twice a year. Nevertheless, the royal court itself continued to be the Supreme Court with the king as judge at its head. The so-called Conseil11 convened by the king’s will and was composed of approximately 20 advisers. Hence, the king also judged in a more informal setting, surrounded by a few intimates.
With regard to the Lettres de rémission, which are at the centre of interest of the present survey, the new focus are requests for pardon. Pardon was an act of royal power and an integral part of a balanced rule between justice and mercy, between absolute power and royal wisdom and, therefore, refers to the holiness of the king himself. The requester as supplicant recognized the supreme authority of the king, admitted his guilt, and expressed his repentance. Public order was thus restored and the Lettres de rémission took an integral part in it. From an administrative point of view, the Chambre des plaids de la Porte, later called the Requêtes de l’Hôtel, is of importance, since it attended to the issuing of Lettres d’État and of Lettres de rémission. Before
10 See in detail further down. 11 Also called Grand Conseil or Secret Conseil.
Chapter 2. Corpus and methodology 12 turning to the following section, where the characteristics of Lettres de rémission are addressed by looking closer at the genre itself and its evolution, the extent of the French legal system applied in Late Medieval Normandy is shortly presented.
The two parts of our corpus coincide with the two periods within the Hundred Years’ War.12 The issuing of Lettres de rémission increased considerably after the outbreak of the war. This was presumably due to the fact that it constituted an easy and profitable source of the royal income (Michel 1942). Shortly before the time frame of the first part of my corpus, Normandy became part of the very heart of the French kingdom: the duke of Normandy acceded to the French throne as Jean II in 1350. His most important adversary on Norman soil was Charles II, king of Navarra. Charles II claimed the French crown, since his mother was the only child of Louis X. He also held extensive properties in Normandy and succeeded in assembling the dissatisfied members of the Norman aristocracy. Jean II initially adopted a policy of reconciliation. He left huge parts of the Cotentin to Charles II and, in order to soothe Norman feelings, he appointed his own son, Charles, Duke of Normandy in 1355. After various moments of rebellion among Norman aristocracy, Jean II changed his policy of reconcilement. In April 1356 he appeared at a dinner his son, Charles, gave in Rouen and arrested Charles II whose brother subsequently asked Edward III for help. In June 1356 English troops landed in Cotentin. Within a few weeks they ravaged large parts of Lower Normandy. The English captured Jean II in the battle of Poitiers in September 1356 and brought him to England where he was held prisoner until 1360. Meanwhile, his son, Charles, took over the regency.
The first part of our data originated in a context of a power vacuum. After the capture of Jean II, the combats mostly paused. Nevertheless, groups of remaining English soldiers and followers of Charles II roamed through the Norman region and ravaged it. The Lettres de rémission of my corpus frequently mention crimes that resulted from confrontations between them and local peasants but also merchants, craftsmen and noblemen.
The second part of my corpus is politically characterized by the victory of Henry V of England in the battle of Agincourt. Subsequently, from 1417 to 1419, Henry V conquered Normandy. The different factions of the French court tried to join forces in order to fight the English, but
12 For an extensive survey on the history of Normandy during the Hundred Years’ War, refer to Neveux (2008). The following part is essentially based on the parts of the same book: Prelude, Introduction, chapters 1-3, 6, 8, 12. Divergent references are mentioned when used
Chapter 2. Corpus and methodology 13 their rivalries were so important that this finally led to an alliance between the Burgundians and the English. This alliance resulted in the signing and ratification of the Treaty of Troyes where the French king, Charles VI, disinherited his son accused of lèse-majesté and appointed Henry V as his heir. After the death of Henry V in 1422, his son, Henry VI, aged 8 months, succeeded to the throne of the newly constituted kingdom of France and England. Henry V’s brother, the duke of Bedford, became regent of France and governor of Normandy. After the victory of the Anglo-Burgundian troops against the troops of the disinherited dauphin at Verneuil, the kingdom saw a short period of peace until 1429. From then on, the campaigns of Jeanne d’Arc took mainly place outside Normandy, and only in few places in Upper Normandy did resistance movements spark. However, neither these events nor others linked to Jeanne’s capture and her execution in Rouen in 1431, are addressed. The English occupants kept the French administrative structures in Normandy and even established other authorities in order to govern the region independently from the English kingdom. The Exchequer, a Court of Finances and the Treasury were installed in Caen, the Chancellery in Rouen. The latter continued to issue legal documents following French standards; among them a large number of Lettres de rémission can be found. Their issuing contributed to no small extent to the income of the English in Normandy and allowed them to self-finance the occupation of Normandy. The following section deals with the characteristics of Lettres de rémission by looking closer at the genre itself, its structure and its interest for linguistic research.
2.1.2.2 Genre
Together with the Lettres de grâce, the Lettres de rémission (LDR)13 represent the legal documents issued by the chancellery in cases of a successful request for pardon. The first LDR date from the beginning of the 14th century but until the ordonnance cabochienne of 1413, grace could be accorded orally without issuing a written document. LDR were one of the first documents, the chancellery issued in French. The use of French in LDR started in the second quarter of the 14th century and it can be found in four fifth of the LDR under Charles, Duke of Normandy. By the beginning of the 15th century it had become prevalent (Michel 1942). LDR are typical of the legal system in France, there is no equivalent attested for the Holy Roman Empire, for instance.
13 The special character of lettres d’abolition, which granted grace and oblivion in case of irremissible crimes and were issued to collectives rather than individually, was not examined in detail (Gauvard 2010: 64).
Chapter 2. Corpus and methodology 14
Lettres de grâce suspended and abolished the prosecution of a crime that was established as a fact. The petitioner’s guilt did not vanish, but he did not have to serve the sentence. In contrast, LDR consisted of an act of mercy by re-establishing the supplicant’s reputation. The charges against the requester were withdrawn before any trial took place. LDR were issued after a previous request of the suppliant or his close entourage (cf. Gauvard 2010). Those letters of request contained a description of the crime and its circumstances. The argumentation followed several general topoi: the supplicant’s intentions were minimized, the gravity of the offence was tempered, and the victim was presented as a person full of vices, often having provoked, threatened or attacked the supplicant before the crime took place. Furthermore, they mentioned the supplicant’s present desperate situation, his good behaviour, and his loyalty to the king as well as his repentance. Keep in mind that the local royal agents, the bailiffs, and viscounts were responsible for the procedure involving requests for pardon. They were entrusted with the organisation of the hearings and with the investigations linked to the requests. In case of an affirmative assessment, a description of the crime including any mitigating circumstances was prepared as a draft version and presented to the Requêtes de l’Hôtel. To some extent, the decision to issue LDR and LDG could also be delegated to territorial princes as, for instance, to the Dukes of Normandy. LDR and LDG were finally issued by and registered in the chancellery (Solon 1995). In 60% of the cases the delay to issue the LDR was shorter than a year (Billoré et al. 2012). Since the whole act implied various players, the receipt of a LDR was also a matter of money. In the 14th century the costs were at least 32 sous; often they were priced around 60 sous or significantly higher depending on the supplicant’s background.14 The payment was due on receipt of the document; if the supplicant wished the LDR to be recorded in the register of the chancellery, he had to pay a supplement of 20 sous. An additional, variable sum was due to the Chambre de comptes.
From the 14th century onwards, grace started to be attached to conditions in order to compensate for the crime and restore the social and public order. For instance, rapists had to marry their victim or, in case of a collective crime, the supplicant had to inform against his accomplices. With regard to the restoration of public order weakened by the crime, one might think that grace could not be applied to all sorts of crimes. Indeed, a royal ordonnance de réforme from 135615
14 Jews paid twice as much, and people from the counties of Champagne and Navarra three times the amount. Cf. Gauvard (2010) and Billoré et al. (2012). 15 Gauvard (2010) dates it one year later.
Chapter 2. Corpus and methodology 15 limited the scope of LDR. Pardon should not be granted neither for murder, mutilation, rape, arson, breach of truce, of asseurement, or of oath of peace nor infraction of safeguard.16 However, several studies have shown that any crime could be remitted (Billoré et al. 2012, Gauvard 2010, Muchembled 1978, among others). This is confirmed by the data presented in the next section.
2.1.2.3 The present corpus
This section provides a description of the corpus used for the present study. First, the results of the previous two sections are related to the present data by describing how the socio-political events are reflected in the chosen LDR. Next, the transmission and edition context are presented. Finally, the selection of the LDR that were finally used for this study are explained.
2.1.2.3.1 Socio-political reflections
To introduce the present section, two predominant elements of the social history reflected in the LDR are related, namely the social status of the supplicant and the committed crimes to the general political history of the investigated period.
As pointed out above, the LDR originate from two different periods and were issued by two antagonistic governments. It can therefore be expected to find reflections of these antagonisms to some extent in the data. In order not to go beyond the scope of this work, I concentrate on two elements: the supplicant’s social status and the remitted crimes. An overview of the crimes committed by the supplicants according to the LDR shows that there are considerable variations between the period of French domination and the period under English rule. In approximately half of the cases, the LDR relate to more than one crime. Multiple references are therefore taken into account. The different crimes can be divided into four groups: major offenses against persons (including murder, injuries resulting in death and severe injuries), minor offenses against persons (raids, threats, rapes and fights), economic offenses (thefts, pillages and crimes linked to money trading) and offenses attacking directly or indirectly the public order and the government (cooperation with the enemies or brigands, escape, exile, violations of caution conditions and, for the second period, crimes against English people). For the period under French domination, the LDR issued for crimes of the first group are largest in number (61%).
16 Cf. Numéro 241, ordonnance du lieutenant général, rendue en conséquence des demandes des États généraux, 3 mars 1356, publiée en l’assemblée, publiquement. In: Jourdan and Isambert (1823: 814-847).
Chapter 2. Corpus and methodology 16
In contrast, the English rulers issued LDR only in 34% of the cases for major offenses against persons. In this period, most LDR were issued for offenses against public order and the ruler himself (55% compared to 16% under the French). Obviously, these numbers cannot be generalized: one cannot assert, for example, that under French domination, major offenses against persons took place in much higher number or that Normandy was safer under the English rulers. Remember that LDR do only record the cases in which the request for mercy was successful. What we can deduce from that numbers is that under French domination, a higher number of LDR were issued for crimes against persons, whereas the English rulers showed mercy, in more than half of all cases, on crimes offending their own power. Furthermore, it can be noticed that only a small number of cases refer to offenses against persons whereas the cases during the first period form double the number compared to those of the second period (8% to 4%). Concerning the last group of crimes, originating from economic reasons, we have the same distribution (16% to 7%). One could come to the conclusion that the higher number of economic crimes resulted from the politically unstable situation of Normandy during the first years. Once again, even if one might find confirmations for this in the LDR, the LDR are not the only sources to be taken into consideration.
Crime 1357-1360 1423-1433 Injury resulting in death 20 14 Murder 9 5 Severe injuries 2 0 Cooperation with the enemies 4 10 (Navarrians-English/French) Cooperation with brigands 0 10 Escape and exile 2 7 Crimes against English people (1 murder) 4 Violation of conditions of a caution 2 0 Raids 2 0 Threat 2 0 Rape 0 1 Fight 0 1 Theft 4 1 Pillage 2 2 Crimes linked to money trading 2 1 Total 51 56
Chapter 2. Corpus and methodology 17
Table 1. Overview of the committed crimes, 1357-1360 and 1423-1433.17
It is useful to take a closer look at the distribution of the crimes across the second period which is considerably longer than the first one and for which one can distinguish different phases: a period of organization and restoration of the public order (1423-1425), followed by a period of peace (1427-1429) and the ensuing flare-up of French resistance (1431-1433). Since this selection of the LDR is not equal across the three periods, as could be seen above, only the proportional distribution is described. For the first phase of restoration, the analysis of 23 LDR shows that 21 of them refer to crimes offending the public order: there are seven cases of cooperation with brigands, seven cases of collaboration with the French, four cases of exile, and two cases of assaults against English people. During periods of relative peace, the majority of LDR are issued for major offenses against persons (seven cases), one is issued for the accusation of having uttered forged money, and two are issued for collaboration with the French. Concerning the latter, the first LDR issued in 1427 refers to a 1424 plot to betray Rouen to the French, and the second is the last LDR of this period and reports a minor crime (withholding of a letter). It can be stated that the period of relative peace is reflected in my corpus, since the proportion of crimes against the public order are negligible. The last phase shows a different picture. Apart from two economic cases and one minor one, the LDR include three cases of major offenses against persons, two cases of collaboration with the French, one of cooperation with brigands, and one case of an attempt against an English person. The distribution of the crimes seems to be balanced in a way but as I have only ten LDR analysed for that last period, I can only record the fact that there is a rise in crimes against the public order. This corresponds to the growing destabilisation of the English rule during this period, compare, for instance, Beaune (1999), Contamine (1994, 1999), Curry (1999), Jouet (1999) and Neveux (2008) among others.
2.1.2.3.2 Transmission and edition
As shown above, the chancellery issued LDR. For this reason, most of them were registered in the chancellery, in the Registres du Trésor de Chartes, and were kept in the French National Archives (FNA) under the series JJ. These registers are contemporary copies of the LDR written by the scribes of the Chancellery and hence the LDR are transmitted in an almost immediate
17 There is no distinction here between commission of the offence and accessory before or after the fact. For that see the complete overview in the annex.
Chapter 2. Corpus and methodology 18 way. Under the reference numbers JJ 35 to JJ 266, we find the registers of the chancellery from 1286 to 1568.18 According to Michel (1942), of a total number of 95,000 acts retained in the FNA, 53,800 are LDR. The LDR on which the corpus is based are included in JJ 87 and JJ 172 to JJ 175. JJ 87 covers the period from 1357 to 1360 and contains a total number of 357 acts, of which 210 are LDR. JJ 172 to JJ 175 correspond to the period from 1419 to 1434 and include a total number of 2,177 acts and 1,754 LDR.
The first part of this corpus is based on JJ 87 and was edited by Adrien Dubois commissioned by the CRISCO research centre of the University of Caen Basse-Normandie in 2014.19 He selected those LDR written in French that refer to Normandy on the basis of analyses in a handwritten analytic inventory of JJ 87 and 88 by Suzanne Clémencet at the Centre d’Accueil et de Recherche des Archives Nationales (CARAN). His transcriptions are based on the following criteria: they are as close to the manuscript text as possible. However, he introduced punctuation and elaborated abbreviations that were signalled by italics.
The text basis for the second part of my corpus is provided in form of the OCR-processed version of the Actes de la Chancellerie d’Henri VI concernant la Normandie sous la domination anglaise (1422-1435) edited by Paul le Cacheux in 1908.20 The CRISCO research centre undertook the OCR version. It contains a selection of LDR and other legal documents related to the Normandy region under the English occupation from 1422 to 1433. The LDR constitute the major part of the edition and are published in their entirety, in contrast to other text types, as vidimus, for instance, of which the major part is printed in a distilled version. They are issued on behalf of Henri VI who introduces himself as king of France and England. According to Cacheux (1908), the LDR are signed by the king himself, to the relation of the reigning duke of Bedford, of the Council and of the Exchequer, and bear the signature of a secretary. Unfortunately, Cacheux does not detail the criteria used for establishing the edition but we can suspect that he introduced punctuation and replaced abbreviations without indicating his modifications. However, there is no indication that he modified the morphology or the syntax of the texts.
18 A detailed description of the transmission context of the Trésor de chartes goes beyond the scope of the present study, for further details see the following link to the Archives nationales http://www.archivesnationales.culture.gouv.fr/chan/chan/fonds/guideorientation/I-1-tresorchartes.htm, 5th February 2015: 16:38. 19 http://www.crisco.unicaen.fr/IMG/pdf/JJ_87.pdf, 14th February 2016, 15:27. 20 Two pdf files: http://www.crisco.unicaen.fr/IMG/pdf/Le_Cacheux_2_Daphne.pdf and http://www.crisco.unicaen.fr/IMG/pdf/Le_Cacheux_2_Cecile.pdf, 14th February 2016, 15:32.
Chapter 2. Corpus and methodology 19
2.1.2.3.3 Selection criteria
The CRISCO corpus Français légal ancien de Normandie contains a total of 375 LDR, 194 for the first period21 and 181 for the second period.
For the period from 1357 to 1360, a total of 45 LDR was selected. The four years should be equally represented, but of the first year, there are only 9 LDR available on the whole. I therefore compiled a corpus of those 9 letters for 1357, 11 for 1358, 12 for 1359 and 13 for 1360. The unequal distribution for the latter three years is due to the fact that all 24 LDR containing parts of direct speech should be included in the corpus and a minimum of 2 LDR without direct speech part should be maintained per year. Furthermore, the LDR without direct speech were selected at random. The number of 45 LDR for the first part of the corpus corresponds to 23,2% of the total number of LDR in the Français légal ancien de Normandie in the same period. 53% of the LDR of the first period contain parts of direct speech.
Year Total number of selected LDR LDR containing direct speech 1357 9 2 1358 11 5 1359 12 6 1360 13 11
Table 2. Distribution of the selected LDR. 1357-1360.
The second part of the corpus, from 1423 to 1433, includes 44 LDR. This corresponds to 24,3% of the total number of LDR in the same period. On the whole, 35% of the LDR of the second period contain parts of direct speech. As the second part covers a longer period of time, the number of LDR to choose per year according to the distribution of the total number of LDR across our given time periodwas determined first. Then the distribution according to the place of issue was taken into account. Therefore, the selection is also based on the proportion of documents issued in Paris (65%) versus elsewhere (35%) in order to represent the proportion of all LDR of this period.
21 The version of JJ 87 provided online only comprises 24 LDR which all contain parts of direct speech. Therefore, the LDR of the first period that are not available online can be found in the appendix (cf. appendix A).
Chapter 2. Corpus and methodology 20
Year Total number of LDR Number of selected LDR 1423 23 6 1424 46 12 1425 24 6 1427 22 5 1428 17 3 1429 10 2 1431 6 2 1432 24 6 1433 6 2
Table 3. Distribution of the selected LDR. 1423-1433.
The original text base does not contain LDR for the year 1430 and only one for 1426. The obviously traceable letter of 1426, number 76, is due to an error of OCR-transcription because the dating is “l'an de grace mil CCCC XXIIII”, whereas the as well wrongly dated LDR 1437/26, number 160 is dated “Donné à Paris, le xxije jour de janvier, l'an de grâce mil quatre cens et vint six et de nostre règne le quint”. However, with regard to the distribution of the other LDR, both years were excluded from the corpus.
For the first period, the following LDR are part of the corpus:
(1) 1, 4, 5, 9, 20, 22, 24, 25, 35, 36, 38, 43, 50, 61, 70, 80, 101, 107, 112, 115, 121, 131, 159, 166, 177, 179, 190, 202, 212, 231, 250, 252, 255, 258, 277, 285, 286, 287, 302, 303, 306, 307, 310, 320, 322.
For the second period, the LDR given in (2) constitute the corpus.
(2) 1, 4, 5, 10, 19, 22, 25, 29, 31, 36, 43, 49, 53, 55, 56, 63, 68, 70, 73, 75, 77, 81, 89, 91, 161, 168, 173, 176, 178*, 178**, 183, 185, 192, 197, 201, 203, 204, 207, 211, 218, 220, 223, 225, 229.
In order to determine the origin of the examples used, the year and the number of the corresponding LDR is noted. This notation immediately allows to relate the corresponding example to the period in question.
Chapter 2. Corpus and methodology 21
2.1.2.4 Structure and linguistic interest of LDR
In the present section, the structure of LDR is examined in order to establish a general mould of LDR and discuss the interest of LDR for linguistic research.
2.1.2.4.1 Textual characteristics
Since LDR conformed to administrative demands, they followed the contemporary diplomatic discourse. This is reflected by their uniform structure composed of three parts: an initial protocol, the text of the document and the eschatocol.22
To exemplify this structure a LDR of 1358, number 43, is analysed in detail.23 First, the protocol sets out introductory remarks as the so-called intitulatio, naming the issuer of the document, here the future French king Charles VI, then duke of Normandy and son of Charles V, and the inscriptio, i.e. the address24 in (3).
(3) Charles [, ainsné fils du roy de france, duc de normandie, dauphin de viennois,] savoir faisons a tous presens & avenir que Charles [eldest son of the king of France, duke of Normandy, Dauphin of Viennois] we let know all present and future that (1358,43)25
This shows that LDR are not addressed to the supplicant but function as legal documents containing a royal order which is announced to all his subjects. This therefore follows Lalière’s (2008) assumption that LDR do not contain an address. Furthermore, the use of the collocation savoir faisons mus be noticed as it is used in all LDR studied in the same place.
Second, the text of a LDR consists of a narratio, a dispositio, an injonctio, and a clause of corroboration. The narratio corresponds to the original plea of clemency: it narrates the events.
22 For further details on the Diplomatic discourse of medieval documents see Goetz (1993) and Guyotjeannin et al. (2006: 71-85). For the translation of the French and German terms to English see the online version of the Vocabulaire international de la diplomatique, hosted by Ludwigs-Maximilian-Universität München http://www.cei.lmu.de/VID/, 3rd February 2015, 15:57. 23 The numbering of the LDR corresponds to the numbering used in the CRISCO’s edition. 24 Modification in square brackets is made by the author, it corresponds to the model of the first LDR of 1357. In the CRISCO edition in LDR number 43 of 1358 an “etc.” is to be found at the place of the brackets. Furthermore, please note that in general, translations are provided of the given examples, glosses will be used only when necessary for the understanding of the syntax. Within the translations, subject pronouns are marked only when there is no overt subject used in the original. In this case, the subject pronouns are bracketed. 25 In order to allow the identification of the origin of the examples used, the year and the number of the corresponding LDR are noted.
Chapter 2. Corpus and methodology 22
First, the facts of the committed crime are exposed, mentioning potentially extenuating or exceptional circumstances as in (4).
(4) que comme la veille de la feste Saint Jehan Baptiste derr. passee ledit Alleaume aprés heure de disner eust encontré en la ville de Dreux feu Jehan Le Norri sergent du baill. de Gisors, lequel li demanda ou estoit le baill. et ledit Allieume li respondi qu’il ne savoit ou il estoit mais bien cuidoit qu’il estoit en la ville et qu’il ne creoit pas qu’il en fust hors pour ce que pluseurs des ennemis du royaume estoient environ ladite ville pour laquelle response ledit Jehan Le Norri se commença moult forment a couroucier audit Alleaume et pour ce sanz autre cause desmenti et gar[çonna] pluseurs fois ledit Alleaume avec pluseurs autres injures et villenies qu’il le dist lors ledit Alleaume esmeu de parol des ordenees que ledit Jehan Le Nourry li avoit dictes li demenda se ce qu’il li disoit il li disoit comme Jehan Le Norri simplement et il li respondi que oil. Si avint que ledit Alleaume a qui il sembloit que ledit Jehan n’avoit nulle cause de l’avoir ainsi desmenti et garconné et dire tant de villenies par eschaufeture aprés vin frapa ledit Jehan d’un coutel dont il fu navré de laquelle navreure ledit Jehan Le Norri mourut dedens VIII jours aprés pour occasion de laquele mort ledit Alleaume a esté appellez aux droiz de nostre tres cher et amé cousin le conte d’Eu et a present conte de Dreux a cause de Ysabel de Meleun sa femme lequel pour doubte de rigueur de justice de longue prison s’est absentez du pais […] that the day before the past feast of Saint Jehan Baptise, the said Alleaume had met after the hour of lunch in the town of Dreux defunct Jehan Le Norri, sergeant of the bailiff of Gisors, who asked him where the bailiff was, and the said Alleaume answered him that he did not know where he was but that he believed indeed that he stayed in town and that he did not think that he was outside the town because several enemies were in the surroundings of the said town. Because of this answer, the said Jehan le Norri started getting very angry with the said Alleaume and because of that and without any other reason, (he) repudiated and treated the said Alleaume with disdain several times with several other insults and vilenesses that he said to him, whereupon the said Alleaume moved by the upset words that the said Jehan Le Nourry had said to him asked him if what he said to him he said to him as Jehan Le Norri simply
Chapter 2. Corpus and methodology 23
and he answered to him that yes. So (it) occurred that the said Alleaume, to whom it seemed that the said Jehan did not have any reason to repudiate and treat him with disdain and to say so many vile things, enraged and after having drunken wine struck the said Jehan with a knife. Of that he got injured. Of this injury the said Jehan Le Norri died within 8 days. Because of this death, the said Alleaume had been summoned to appear at the court of our very dear cousin, the count of Eu and at present count of Dreux because of Ysabel de Meleun his wife. He (Alleaume) had left the country fearing the harshness of justice and of prison (1358,43)
As has been seen before, such mitigating circumstances could comprise antecedent insults by the victim and drunkenness. Second, the request for pardon followed as in (5), justified by a portrayal of the supplicant’s positive characteristics and his impeccable behaviour as a citizen in the past:
(5) […] si nous a supplié que comme il soit et ait tou[t]jours esté homme de honeste conversacion et de bonne fame et renommee sanz nul mauvais reproche nous en ceste partie wuillons avoir pitié et compassion de li […] so (he) has begged us that since he is and has always been man of honest conduct and of good fame and reputation without any reproach, we on this behalf should have mercy and compassion with him (1358,43)
There are no collocations as such to be found, but it is noticeable that the description of the supplicant’s quality alludes to his honourableness, his reputation, and his impeccable conduct and can therefore be analysed as a recurrent element.
The dispositio is the core of the whole document: the act of law. It states the issuer’s motivation and records his decision, compare (6).
(6) Savoir faisons que nous eu consideracion aus choses dessusdites audit Alleaume ou cas dessus dit le fait de ladite mort avec toute paine corporelle et civille que pour ce il puet avoir encouru envers nostre dit seigneur et nous li avons quicté, remis et pardonné et par ces presentes de grace especial et auctorité royal dont nous usons a present quictons, remetons et pardonnons et le restituons au pais a sa bonne femme et renommee et a ses biens
Chapter 2. Corpus and methodology 24
(We) let know that we having considered the above said things have removed, remitted and forgiven the said Alleaume for the above said case the said death with all corporal and civil penalty that he for this could have incurred towards our said lord and us and by the present (letters) of special pardon and royal authority which we exercise at present, (we) remove, remit and forgive and restore to him the land and his good fame and reputation and his goods (1358,43)
Once again, there is the collocation Savoir faisons by which the disposition is introduced in all the LDR of thecorpus. The use of the first person plural pronoun combined with the participle eu and the noun consideration is likewise the same in all LDR studied. Similarly, the wording by which the suppliant has been remitted and granted pardon accords with the other LDR. Only the collocation on corporal or civil penalty shows small variations in the word order in the relative clause. For instance, instead of pour ce il puet avoir encouru, one also finds il pour ce puet avoir encouru or still il puet avoir pour ce encouru. This structure needs therefore to be analysed in detail hereafter.
LDR do not contain an explicit sanctio, but in some cases, it imposes additional conditions by reserving the validity of the document to commitments of the supplicant as in (7).
(7) sauf droit de partie a poursuir civilement par ainsi que dedens Noel prochain venant ledit Alleaume sera tenu d’aler en pelerinaige a Nostre Dame de Roychemadeur apart the right to pursue (him) by civil law in that until next Christmas, the said Alleaume is bound to go on a pilgrimage to Notre Dame de Rocamadour (1358,43)
In addition, in the injonctio given in (8), the local agents of the ruler and anyone else are obliged to respect this decision, to discontinue legal prosecutions and to refund seized goods.
(8) Si donnons en mandement par la teneur de ces presentes au bailli de Gisors qui a present est et pour le temps avenir sera et a touz les autres justiciers royaux ou a leurs lieuxtenans que ledit Alleaume facent et lessent user et joir paisiblement de nostre presente grace et remission et contre la teneur d’icelle ne le molestent ne seuffrent estre molesté en aucune manere en corps ne en
Chapter 2. Corpus and methodology 25
biens. Et en empliant nostredite grace il nous plaist et voulons que nostredit cousin puisse faire audit Alleaume semblable grace sanz ce que ou temps a venir il porte aucun prejudice a li ne a sa juridicion sauf en autres choses le droit de nostredit seigneur et de nous et en toutes l’autruy So (we) command by the content of the present (letters) to the bailiff of Gisors who by now is and in the future will be and to all other royal legal commissioners and to their lieutenants that they should have and let the said Alleaume make use of and enjoy peacefully our present pardon and remission and that against the content of the present letter they shall not harass him nor tolerate that he might be harassed by other in any way neither physically nor in his possessions. And by enlarging our said pardon, we would like that our said cousin can give to the said Alleaume similar pardon without that in the future he does harm to him or to his jurisdiction except in other things the right of our said lord and of us and to all others (1358,43)
The wording of the order essentially matches in all the LDR except for the exact names of the local agents. Similarly, the relative clause indicating the unlimited validity does not display variation in my corpus. By contrast, the subordinate corresponding to the content of the order exhibits variation in word order and needs to be scrutinised in the following.
The corrobatio validates the act of law. As such, medieval legal documents include an announcement that the document is to be sealed or to be validated by a list of witnesses. In the case of the LDR, the former is prevalent as illustrated in (9).
(9) Et que ce soit ferme chose et estable a touzjours mais nous avons fait mettre seel a ces presentes lettres and so that this may be a firm and stable matter forever, we have had the present letters sealed (LDR 1358,43)
The formulation can equally be regarded as formulaic since it can be found in all LDR of the corpus.
Chapter 2. Corpus and methodology 26
Finally, the eschatocol of LDR, given in (10), is composed of the dating and the subscriptio, the signature, and may also contain extra sigillum notes. 26
(10) Donné a Paris le XVIe jour de fevrier l’an de grace MCCCLVII sign. par mons. le duc a la relacion du conseil ouquel estoient mess. le mareschal de Champ. Guillaume d’Ambreville et Philippe de Trois Monz. Jobelin. lecta. Given in Paris on the 16th day of February of the year of our Lord 1357 signed by the duke according to the information of the conseil composed of the brigadier Guillaume d’Ambreville and Philippe de Trois Monz. Jobelin. lecta. (LDR 1358,35)
In my LDR, I do not have a subscriptio27, the extra sigillum notes comprise the whole part after the dating and do not refer to the act of law itself but to its elaboration. The present LDR is based on the report of the maréchal de camp Guillaume d’Ambreville and of Philippe de Trois Monz and approved during the absence of the duke himself who is nevertheless the only one to have the power to sign the act. This is expressed by the formula a la relacion du conseil (cf. Lallière 2008). In the example above, Jobelin is therefore the name of the notary. In some of the LDR, at the very end of the document there is the information that the letter was read out loud, such as lecta per dominum Philippum in LDR 1357,25.
To sum up, in the LDR there are typical elements of medieval legal acts, which do not share the characteristics of letters in the classical sense. Nevertheless, traces of their genesis are reflected in the narratio and, therefore, they document themselves. Hence, LDR can be described as codifying a dialogue between the supplicant and the king.28 In the next section, the interest of LDR for linguistic research is discussed.
2.1.2.4.2 Linguistic interest of LDR
As was shown, LDR are highly codified in structure and, consequently, also reveal special linguistic codes. On the one hand, they are generally assumed to be characterised by a style recommended by the handbooks of the chancellery (Davis 1988). However, Davis (1988)
26 We opted for another LDR because it allows to exemplify in more detail the extra sigillum notes. 27 The typical formula subscripsi, abbreviated to subs., ss. and SS. are missing. See http://www.cei.lmu.de/VID/VID.php?254, 4th February 2015, 10:35. 28 For more on this subject see Gauvard (2010).
Chapter 2. Corpus and methodology 27 focuses on LDR from the 16th century, it is therefore debatable to which extent her conclusions can be adopted for the present LDR. The protocol, the clause of corroboration and the eschatocol are essentially the typical formula used by the chancellery. The dispositio and the injonctio display a somewhat less fixed style, but still contain many typical collocations of the legal genre. This underlines Koch and Oesterreicher’s (1994) assumption that almost all genres of medieval letters are marked by the Distanzsprache (language of distance).
On the other hand, LDR are recognized as being extremely vivid with regard to the subjects, the details, and Cacheux (1908) considers the writers to not take notion of any literary concerns. This essentially refers to the narratio and possible additional conditions on the validity of the document where legal formula are generally lacking and is easily explained by the fact that the former is essentially based on the request for pardon of the suppliant. As said above, the narratio narrates the events. For that, direct speech is used as well as first and second person forms as illustrated in (11).
(11) Lequel Vignon n'en voulut riens fere, mais tensoit plus fort que devant, en lui disant : «Vaurabourg, vous m’avez mis en avant d'un arbre que j’ay fait abatre en la forest, mais vous n’avez gaires gangnié et n'en sera gaires plus riche, se j’en fais amende; et se vous servez bien, vous faites bien ; mais je me doubte que tantost le temps changera; par quoy vous, messieurs les officiers du Roy d'Angleterre, n'aurez pas si grant audience.» Sur quoy ledit Vaurabourg respondit a icellui Vignon que il servoit si bien le Roy en son office que lui ne autre n'en pourroient dire que tout bien, et que se il vouloit mal dire de nous, qu'il ne le deist point devant lui. This Vignon did not want to do anything but continued to discuss even more than before by saying to him: “Vaurabourg, you have referred to a tree that I have had felled in the forest but you have not won hardly anything and you are hardly going to be richer if I pay the penalty; and if you serve well, you do well, but I am doubting that soon the time will change; by what you, gentlemen, officers of the King of England will not have such a big audience.” Whereupon the said Vaurabourg answered to this Vignon that he served the king so well in his office that neither he nor anyone could say anything but all good and that if he wanted to say bad things about us, that he should not say them in front of him. (1425,79)
Chapter 2. Corpus and methodology 28
In addition, parts of regionalisms and swear words can be found in LDR as illustrated in (12), taken from Lebsanft (2005: 365):
(12) […] Et depuis dirent lun alautre par maniere desbatement pluseurs paroles et tant que ledit de Chastillon [12] cognut au parler que ycellui thomas estoit picart / et pour ce par esbatement se prist aparler le langage [13] de picardie / et ledit thomas qui estoit picart prist a contrefaire le langage de france / et parlerent ainsi [14] ensemble longuement / et tant que ledit thomas se prist a courcier de ce que ledit de chastillon contrefaisoit [15] son langage / et lappella pour lui faire desplaisir Sires homs en lui disant que cestoit adire ou langage [16] de leur pays co[u]x […] And then they discussed for fun and the said Chastillon noticed that this Thomas was Picard because of his way of speaking. Because of that, for the fun of it, he started to speak the language of Picardy and the said Thomas who was Picard started to imitate the language of (the Ile-de-)France and so spoke for a long time and then the said Thomas got angry about the fact that the said Chastillon imitated his language and called him in order to annoy him “Sires homs” and told him that this meant cuckold in the language of his region.
Apart from consciousness of the existence of different regional variants as the langage de Picardie and the langage de France, the apparently Picard swear word Sires homs is translated here with the French coux ‘cuckold’. According to Koch and Oesterreicher (1985), the use of swear words and direct discourse are marks of the Nähesprache (language of immediacy). However, they also postulate that the use of the language in various discourse traditions qualifies a given language to be used as a variant of Distanzsprache.
How can LDR be classified under these assumptions? Koch and Oesterreicher (1985: 30) introduce the term elaborierte Mündlichkeit (elaborated orality) in order to account for the “distanzsprachliche Ausprägung von Mündlichkeit”, i.e. orality in a context of Distanzsprache. This corresponds to what Marchello-Nizia (2014) understands by the term oral representé (represented oral), namely direct speech used within texts, which she takes to be the unique possibility to approximate the orality in diachronic data.
To sum up, for my corpus, I take these observations into account by primarily considering the narratio, since this is the part of the LDR where elaborierte Mündlichkeit takes place among
Chapter 2. Corpus and methodology 29 parts of more distant narration. Furthermore, pure narration is distinguished from direct and indirect discourse in the annotation. With regard to the fixed passages of the LDR, embedded contexts exhibiting variation in word order are taken into consideration although when it comes to the analytic parts, their origin will be taken into account. Next, the precise methodology that has been used for the annotation procedure is presented.
2.2 Methodology
The present section outlines the methodology used for this study. The annotation of the data, judicial LDR relating to the region of Normandy, was done manually and took place in three phases. First, each subordinate clause was attributed an ID number. Second, the amount and the primary characteristics of these subordinate clauses were established. Those primary characteristics included the type of subordinate clause, the subordinate item – i.e. the subordinating conjunction or relative pronoun, the embedded finite verb, and the type and realization of the embedded subject and its position with in relation to the finite verb.29 Finally, all subordinate clauses containing fronted elements were coded in detail.30 At the structural level the type of fronted element was annotated and its position in relation to the subject and to possible other fronted elements was determined. At the functional level its informational status and the informational status of the whole subordinate clause were identified. In the first subpart the structural annotation of the data was elaborated, and the specific options were detailed. The second subpart explains the methods used to determine the pragmatic function of the fronted elements and the respective subordinates. To sum up, the methodology used is exemplified by illustrating the coding of a LDR of the corpus.
Before turning to the next section, the issue of the function and limits of linguistic annotation are addressed. Haug et al. (2014: 18) come up with the following definition: “To annotate linguistic material is to classify data according to criteria informed by linguistic theory”. On the one hand, annotations are impossible without theoretical assumption. On the other hand, since those annotations are commonly used to test theoretical hypotheses, the theoretical assumptions on which the corpus is based have to be strictly separated from the theoretical hypotheses one wants to test. This strict separation is only possible to a certain degree. Basic notions of syntax
29 If the subject was not overtly realized, or corresponded to the relative clause item, its position was not detailed any further. 30 In case that the subordinate was not coded yet; the whole basic annotation was carried out afterwards.
Chapter 2. Corpus and methodology 30 are commonly established, even outside the linguistic research community. The categorization of elements of a sentence, for instance, is widely known by non-linguists, since it is used in language teaching.31 On the contrary, in pragmatics, the situation is different. Zaenen (2006: 578) observes that “[t]o understand a linguistic utterance is to map from it to a state of the world, a non-linguistic reality.” This act of mapping implies various elements, among which the general accepted notion of world knowledge, i.e. the knowledge that a possible addressee of a sentence has and that enables him to understand the sentence. This causes an essential problem to research on the diachrony of languages since there are no native speakers of our target variants. Hence, one is confronted with the fact that “every meaning we assign to a morpheme, word or phrase is strictly speaking hypothetical.” (Haug et. al 2014: 19). These considerations are borne in mind in the following sections.
2.2.1 Syntactic annotation
2.2.1.1 Selected subordinate clause types and their coding
The reason for concentrating on fronting in embedded contexts only is the following. One of the most prominent properties discussed for Medieval French by analogy to other Old Romance languages is V2 in main clauses (as suggested by Adams 1987; Benincà 1983/1984, 2006; Roberts 1993 and Vance 1997, among others, and challenged by Kaiser 2002; Rinke and Meisel 2009 and Sitaridou 2012). However, in embedded clauses, Old and Middle French show a strong tendency for SVO word order, though some types of subordinate clauses allow V2 order generally assumed to be available mostly in matrix clauses (Labelle and Hirschbühler 2014b). The presence of V2 as a root phenomenon in embedded contexts in Old and Middle French corresponds to a similar phenomenon attested for Germanic languages (Heycock 2006; Haegeman 2012). According to Heycock (2006) root clauses comprehend (highest) matrix clauses, coordinated clauses, and other types of parataxis, among which she counts adverbial clauses expressing causation (the type of German denn), so-clauses in English and free dass- clauses in German, as well as non-restrictive relative clauses, even though the latter do not exhibit V2 in V2 languages. For Old French the following types of subordinate clauses are assumed to not allow V2: relative clauses, indirect questions or temporal adverbial clauses (Labelle and Hirschbühler 2014b). In addition, Franco (2009) notes that for Old Italian V2 is
31 The concept of a nominal group, for instance.
Chapter 2. Corpus and methodology 31 not present in non-bridge complements, if-clauses32, because-clauses, and further adverbials.33 Therefore, in order to prevent intervention effects of V2, we disregard contexts where the fronting of elements could eventually be triggered to satisfy V2. Since Old Romance relative clauses are generally acknowledged to “constitute the most favourable environment for SF” (Franco 2009: 81) and apparently do not show V2 effects, relative clauses are the focus. Bearing Heycock’s (2006) assumption on non-restrictive relative clauses in mind, different types of relative clauses are distinguished as follows: restrictive, non-restrictive, and headless relative clauses. Recall the semantic-based distinctions between relative clause types. Relative clauses which help to identify the reference item(s) evoked by the nominal head are called restrictive (also qualifying or specifying). Consider (13) as an example.
(13) ceulx qui presens estoient those who present were ‘those who were present’ (1431,201)
In contrast, non-restrictive (also appositive, explicative, or parenthetical) relative clauses give additional information about the nominal head (Holler 2013; Bianchi 2002a, b). Consider (14) as an example
(14) ledit Graindorge, lequel il print derechief a la gorge a deux poings the.said Graindorge who he took then at the throat by two fists ‘the said Graindorge, who he then took at the throat by both hands’ (1431,201)
Therefore, the distinction between both types is only possible by taking into account the context of the utterance.34 Relative clauses, depending on an overt nominal head where the classification relying on the context remains unclear, were coded as such, as ambiguity may reveal something about either bridging contexts or research deficits that may be addressed by further research. Headless or free relative clauses lack an overt realized nominal head (Grosu
32 On the basis of an analogy with Germanic V2 languages, if-clauses have been classified as “non-V2 contexts”, supposing that the syntactic derivation of the antecedent would ban topicalizations (Franco 2009: 86). 33 However, there are several studies that reject a V2 analysis for Old French, consider for instance Kaiser (2002). Furthermore, for Old Spanish, the situation appears to be different. Fontana (1993) describes it as a symmetric V2 language, whereas Wolfe (2015a) groups it as a limited embedded V2 language, since he accounts for an increased number of V1 and SVO orders. He points out that for relative and wh-clauses further research is needed. 34 Present-day punctuation – i.e. commas in cases of non-restrictive relative clauses (cf. Grevisse and Goosse 2008) – is not operable consistently at the time of our data, although in (14), the comma can be found.
Chapter 2. Corpus and methodology 32
2002). A fourth type is sometimes assumed to be available in French and other Romance languages: the type of “attributive” or “predicative” relative clauses (Schwarze 1974; Barme 2010) as illustrated in (15).
(15) Je le vois qui arrive. I see him who arrives
However, within my corpus, any occurrences of this type have not been found.
Furthermore, comparative clauses containing a finite verb are take into account since they are considered to be closely related to relative clauses (Bresnan 1973, 1975; Donati 1997). Take (16), (17) and (18) as examples, the latter two being taken from Donati (1997: 151).
(16) quant envers Dieu fais telle disloyauté que les dismes […] tu paies si mauvaisement when towards God (you) make such a disloyalty that the tithes you pay so badly.” (1359,250)
(17) Oggi sono venuti più invitati di quantii ne siano venuti today have come more guests than what of.them have come
[e]i ieri yesterday ‘More guests came today than yesterday.’
(18) Oggi sono venuti più invitati di quellii che/quantii sono venuti today have come more guests than those who/what have come
[e]i ieri yesterday ‘More guests came today than those who came yesterday.’
On the one hand, some comparative clauses as for instance (16) correspond to restrictive relative clauses from a bare syntactic point of view, since their comparative value is only generated by the use of a specific comparative determinant such as telle in the relative head DP. On the other hand, comparative clauses that do not involve a nominal head behave, at first sight, syntactically different from relative clauses, cf. (17). However, the common analysis for (17) is that of free relative clauses involving an extraction context (Bresnan 1973, 1975, Donati
Chapter 2. Corpus and methodology 33
1997). According to Donati (1997), the contrast between (17) and (18), i.e. the imperative use of en in the former and its ban in the latter, can be explained by the different nature of head involved in the respective derivation.35
Furthermore, the category of the nominal head was annotated and a distinction between demonstrative or pronominal pronouns, DPs, PPs, non-overtly realized heads and combinations of those items was made.
2.2.1.2 The subordinate item and the embedded verb
Since the subordinate item and the finite verb constitute the direct environment of the fronted element, coding was done in order to reveal if single factors or combinations of factors favour the fronting.
First, for each comparative and relative clause the type of its subordinate item was coded. In order to keep the coding simple and to permit an easy overview, the coding was done on the basis of the common citation form. Relative pronouns that varied in number or gender were annotated in the masculine singular form. For instance, lesquieux was coded as /lequel/. No distinction was set up between the different uses of que as complementizer or relative clause item either because in combination with the previous coding of clause types, a differentiated analysis is still possible.
Second, the type of the finite verb was coded since it is said to directly influence the fronting. Salvesen (2011), for instance, in her data showed that the presence of modal verbs favours the fronting of infinitives. Further, one might think that the context of predicative expression combined with a finite verb form of the verb être might encourage fronting, too. The type of verb was, therefore, coded in two steps. On the one hand, a differentiation between modal verbs, lexical verbs and être was made. On the other hand, it was annotated whether the verb was used in a synthetic or an analytic form.36
35 Namely the use of a definite determiner-like head in free relatives (D0) and of a quantative determiner-like head in comparatives (Q0), cf. Donati 1997: 150-151. According to her, this explains furthermore the interpretive difference between (17) and (18) with the comparative clause comparing two sets and the relative clause implying a certain overlap between them. 36 However, statistical tests have shown no effects of these variables, hence, the results are not described in detail in chapter 3.
Chapter 2. Corpus and methodology 34
Finally, the distance between the subordinate item and the finite verb was coded. Whenever they were adjacent or the adjacency was only suspended by the fronted element, they were coded as adjacent.37
2.2.1.3 The embedded subject and its position38
In order to determine the concrete position of the fronted element and since in the context of the “stylistic fronting” debate39, many authors (cf. Labelle and Hirschbühler (in press) for an overview) insist on the presence of a subject gap as a central property of “stylistic fronting”, the overt realization of the subject, its type (pronominal, demonstrative, DP) and its position in relation to the finite verb (pre- or post-verbal) were annotated.
2.2.1.4 Fronted elements
For all embedded clauses40 containing fronted elements, the type of the fronted element was coded distinguishing between adjectives, adverbs, objects, PP, past participles and infinitives.41 In case of the same sentence containing an overtly realized preverbal subject, the position of the fronted item(s) in relation to the subject was further annotated. Finally, it was determined if there was an immediate adjacency between the fronted element and the subordinate item.
2.2.2 Pragmatic annotation
In order to determine the pragmatic function of the fronted element, I decided to annotate its informational status and the informational status of the whole embedded clause containing it.
In doing so, two problems need to be addresses. First, the possibility of a partition of information structure (IS) as introduced by Halliday (1967) and further developed by Chafe (1974, 1976), Stalnaker (1978), Prince (1981), Reinhart (1981), Lambrecht (1996), and many others, is rarely examined within embedded sentences (Matić et al. 2014). Second, since
37 The combination of the different annotations permits the differentiated analysis of an expectable high rate of adjacency due to canonical adjacency of qui and the finite verb. Compare the following chapter on the description of the results. 38 If the subject was not overtly realized or corresponded to the relative clause item, its position was not detailed any further. 39 For a detailed survey of this debate please consider chapter 4. 40 In case that the subordinate was not coded yet; the whole primary annotation procedure was carried out afterwards. 41 For the two latter, one also distinguished between the complex fronting of the whole constituent, including possible complements and the single fronting of the infinitive or the participle.
Chapter 2. Corpus and methodology 35 research on IS focuses mainly on present-day language, the application of common theoretical notions and practise of IS coding needs to be adjusted to historical data.
With regard to the latter, since information structure is more and more considered as a factor triggering the variation in word order patterns (Hinterhölzl 2009), the number of studies focussing on information-structural aspects of data from historical corpora has increased since the 2000s. Consider, for instance, the recently edited volume of Bech and Eide (2014), Combettes (2006, 2008), Gabriel and Rinke (2010), Larrivée (2011) and Steiner (2014) as an arbitrary selection among many others. As the purpose of the present chapter is to outline the methodological concept for the annotation of our data, the following discussion is limited on studies that provide insights in their methodological approach on coding and its application. To our knowledge, there is no study that investigates the IS of embedded clauses and details its methodological approach on coding or its applications, respectively. For an extensive survey of the findings of IS in corpora of historical data, see chapter 4.
With regard to the IS in complex clauses, the recent volume, edited by van Gijn et al. (2014) on IS and reference tracking in complex sentences, offers papers on various languages dealing with information structure in embedded contexts. The introduction by Matić et al. (2014) summarizes research on IS and reference tracking in complex sentences and proposes a detailed account for their theoretical analysis. They differentiate between two perspectives on the IS in complex sentences. On the one hand, the external perspective comprehends the complex sentence as a unit of information in its own right with dependent elements being attributed IS values just as for constituents of simple sentences. On the other hand, the internal perspective regards dependent elements as information units themselves. However, their informational status needs to be seen in context of their function within the complex sentence, and their relationship to its other units as illustrated for relative clauses in one of the studies of the volume (Komen 2014). Therefore, the distinction between the external and the internal IS of subordinate sentences seems to be suitable and is retained in the following. Since Matić et al. (2014) do not give insights on how such a coding could be applied, a detailed discussion of their article is postponed to chapter 4.
For the purpose of the present chapter research on, and annotation schemes developed for the coding of (Old Romance) IS in main clauses are combined with the external (2.2.2.1) and internal perspective (2.2.2.2) on IS in embedded clauses. Finally, the decision tree used is introduced.
Chapter 2. Corpus and methodology 36
2.2.2.1 Pragmatic annotation of the external IS
Recall that the external IS of a subordinated sentence corresponds to the IS value that any simple constituent can have in the matrix clause. In order to assign an IS value to the items here, I return to Steiner’s (2014) procedure for main declaratives in Old French and determine, if possible, its relational information-structural status. Steiner (2014) implicitly distinguishes between daughter-subordination and ad-subordination since in her decision trees for the identification of topic, frame-setters and focus, the first needs to be tested “for every discourse referent that is a verbal argument” (Steiner 2014: 92), the second “for all AdvP, PP, and subordinate clauses” (Steiner 2014: 95), and the last “for every non-Topic, non-Frame-setting constituent (including subordinate clauses)” (Steiner 2014: 94). Consequently, the two latter allow ad-subordination and daughter-subordination, whereas the former is only possible for daughter-subordinated sentences.
With respect to frame-setting, Steiner refers to Jacobs’s (2001) definition:
(19) Frame-setting: In (X, Y), X is the frame for Y iff X specifies a domain of (possible) reality to which the proposition expressed by Y is restricted. (Steiner 2014: 59)
Frame setters provide clear contexts for the associated propositions by limiting the truth-value of the clause, or by binding it to a specific time, location or cause.42
Regarding focus, Steiner (2014) recalls the canonical method to figure out the focusability of an element: if the element in question corresponds to the wh-element in a question that would elicit the statement as a response, it can bear focus. She further retains the distinction between contrastive and new-information focus, but insists on new information not essentially bearing focus. New-information focus either modifies existing information or provides new information to the discourse especially with respect to the topic.43
42 The detailed decision trees proposed by Steiner (2014), cf. the appendix 1, are not retaken here. 43 To assure that an element new to the discourse is not seen automatically as focus, the procedure starts with the decision tree for topics where one needs to first verify if such an element is “grounded in some entity that is identifiable and familiar (i.e. an X of mine)” (Steiner 2014: 93).
Chapter 2. Corpus and methodology 37
Concerning topic-hood, Steiner differentiates between three types of topics: aboutness (or shifting), familiar (or continuing), and contrastive.44 The first type corresponds to topics that are used as topics for the first time or that are returned to as such. The second are topics that are coreferential with the most recent aboutness topic. The last type refers to topics that are set in opposition to another established topic. Per sentence, each type can be found once, at most. As mentioned above, the decision tree for topics serves to determine which elements are foci, hence indefinite or quantified arguments are directly remitted to the focus decision tree.
The question that arises here is whether a present-day reader disposes of sufficient world knowledge in order to decide on the various points. For instance, in a sentence like (20), does only the DP Marie or the whole verbal phrase (VP) aime Marie bear focus?
(20) Paul aime Marie Paul loves Marie
Furthermore, Steiner (2014) emphasizes that “there will [be] most likely words that are not labelled with an IS-value” (Steiner 2014: 95). She considers them to be without IS-value.
Since the procedure is developed for main clause declaratives, its application in the present study is restricted to the external IS of the subordinated sentences, and a “referential” approach on IS for the determination of the internal IS, namely givenness, is used.
2.2.2.2 Pragmatic annotation of the internal IS
The dimension of givenness is part of a “referential “conception of IS. It is used to explain the relation of an element of a sentence to other elements that have already been introduced in the Common Ground of the discourse. A givenness analysis offers the possibility to determine an essential part of the pragmatic function of an element of a sentence, namely its informational status, without the need to relate its status to other elements of the same sentence or to come back to the above-mentioned questioning techniques that may be problematic to use in embedded contexts.45 However, the relation of givenness is not binary, i.e. an element is not essentially given or new. Prince (1981) was among the first to opt for a scalar representation of
44 Of course, Steiner’s (2014) decision tree first checks for theticity of the sentence, cf. appendix. 45 For instance, the island effects, first discussed by Ross (1967), may inhibit that. For further details see chapter 4, discussion of Matić et al. (2014).
Chapter 2. Corpus and methodology 38 givenness, criticising the traditional dichotomy for being too narrow to capture the significant differences regarding the activation state in natural discourse.46 Commonly, we distinct between given, accessible, and new discourse referents (Götze et al. 2007, Haug et al. 2014, Petrova and Solf 2009, Steiner 2014). While Steiner (2014), Haug et al. (2014) and Petrova and Solf (2009) focus on the annotation of historical data, Götze et al. (2007) aim at creating guidelines designed for the annotation of information-structural features in typologically diverse languages. All authors pursue an addressee-based notion of givenness, i.e. the idea that the addressee accesses different contexts that allow him to establish the reference. The approaches differ in how fine- grained their annotation are. Steiner (2014) does not distinguish between different types of accessible elements, the others do, to different extent. The proposition presented here is based on those four papers retaining some ideas while discarding others. The latter is mainly due to the fact that the informational status of the fronted elements is coded and that not all of them correspond to morpho-syntactic categories that are generally assumed to function as discourse- referents. For instance, Götze et al. (2007) exclude parts of an idiom, Steiner (2014) looks only at DPs, and Haug et al. (2014) discard relative pronouns, relative clauses, and appositions. As is to be seen in Chapter 3, the categories that can be fronted vary considerably, apart from DPs and PPs we also find adverbs, adjectives, infinitives, and past participles.
First, the less debated category are looked at. All authors agree on that new elements are elements that are – as Steiner (2014: 32) puts it – “not activated in the mental awareness of the interlocutors”, they are therefore new to the hearer and introduced for the first time. For Haug et al. (2014), yet, this basic notion is problematic, since they are the only ones to distinguish between specific and non-specific tags. Their notion of ‘New’ is therefore sometimes vague, above all in contexts introduced by negation, conditionals, or quantified expressions where they label the elements as non-specific whereas singular count nouns are generally labelled as being new. Since such a distinction is not useful for the purposes here, it was discarded for the decision tree used in this study.
The other extreme are elements that are labelled as given or old. Götze et al. (2007) define them as having an explicitly mentioned antecedent in the previous discourse. The notion of previous discourse of given elements varies across the authors. While Steiner (2014) does not detail it
46 For further overview of research on givenness and specific developments cf. Haug et al. (2014), Petrova and Solf (2009) and Steiner (2014). Here the focus is on the criteria for the specific givenness annotation.
Chapter 2. Corpus and methodology 39 any further, Petrova and Solf (2009) distinguish between different types of explicitness of given elements, Götze et al. (2007) subdivide between active, i.e. mentioned within the current or the last sentence, and inactive elements. Haug et al. (2014) stick to the same subdivision but define inactive elements to be activated outside the last 13 preceding sentences.
The last category accessible refers to elements that have not been mentioned before but that are accessible via the assumed world knowledge, the situative context or that are in some kind of relation to a referent in the previous discourse. Once again, Steiner (2014) does not distinguish any further. Götze et al. (2007), Haug et al. (2014) and Petrova and Solf (2009) base their distinctions more or less to the above-mentioned context. This study mainly sticks to the subdivision of Götze et al. (2007), by completing it where necessary. They distinguish four types of accessible elements. First, generally accessible elements are part of the contemporary world knowledge of the speaker and the hearer, be they a set or kind of generic objects or a unique object. Second, situative elements can be inferred by the discourse situation, for instance as Petrova and Solf (2009) and Haug et al. (2014) detail by recurring to deictic means. Third, inferably accessible elements are inferable thanks to so-called bridging relations, for instance, elements that are in a part-whole-relation or a set-relation to otherwise accessible or given discourse referents. Fourth, aggregated-accessible elements are elements built up by a group of otherwise accessible or given discourse referents. Here now is the decision tree used for the coding.
2.2.2.3 Decision tree
This decision tree is essentially based on the guidelines established by Götze et al. (2007), with some modifications.
Here are the given elements. Since the LDR are relatively short, the distinction between actively and inactively given discourse referents is not adopted.
(21) Has the referent been mentioned in the previous discourse? x no: go to the next question x yes: label expression as given (giv)
Turn next to new elements.
Chapter 2. Corpus and methodology 40
(22) Is the referent accessible (1) from world knowledge, (2) as part of the discourse context, (3) via some kind of relation to other referents in the previous discourse, or (4) by denoting a group consisting of accessible or given discourse referents? x yes: go to the next question x no: label expression as new
Finally, here are the different variants of accessible elements. Various subtypes were not distinguished, as detailed above, but, since there were only a few fronted elements that were labelled as accessible, it was decided to subsume them under the general term ‘accessible’.47
(23) Is the referent assumed to be inferable from assumed world knowledge? x yes: label element as accessible (acc) x no: go to the next question
(24) Is the referent a part of the utterance situation (deictic means)? x yes: label the expression as accessible (acc) x no: go to the next question
(25) Is the referent inferable from a referent in the previous discourse by some bridging-relation to other accessible or given referents? x yes: label element as accessible (acc) x no: go to the next question
(26) Does the referring expression denote a group consisting of accessible or given discourse referents? x yes: label element as accessible (acc) x no: go back to the first question (if it is the second turn, label as NN)
That is the point where one needs to return to the theoretical reflections on the limits of linguistic annotation. If after a second turn of the decision tree the answer to the last question was still no, the respective item was labelled NN. Recall that, on the one hand, elements are also coded that are not assumed to be discourse referents and, on the other hand, that the contemporary world knowledge of a possible addressee of the texts is lacking.
47 For the proportion of accessible elements, take a look at chapter 3.
Chapter 2. Corpus and methodology 41
In the upcoming section, the syntactic and pragmatic annotation guidelines are exemplified by presenting an analysis of one LDR from the corpus.
2.2.3 Coding the corpus
From the corpus LDR 1431, 201 is chosen to carry out an exemplified annotation. To begin with, 14 subordinated clauses that correspond to our criteria are coded, labelled <1> – <14>.
(27) Henry, etc., Savoir faisons, etc., nous avoir receu l'umble supplication des parens et amis charnelz de Jehan Graindorge, le jeune, de la parroisse d'Eschallou en la viconté de Faloise, povre simples homs laboureur, aagié de xx ans ou environ, chargié de femme, contenant que come, depuis la saint Michiel derrenierement passée, ledit Graindorge feust alé disner en l’ostel d'un nommé Jehan Rousselaie, <1>ouquel icelui Graindorge et pluseurs autres estoient alez veoir la femme d' icelui Rousselaie <2>qui gesoit d'enfant. Auquel disner, quant il fu bien près de nuit, vint un appellé Jehannin Grente, <3>lequel se assist a la table près dudit Graindorge. Et quant ilz orent fait bonne chiere ensemble, prindrent a parler des appatiz <4>que les parroissiens de la parroisse de Bellou, <5>où demouroit ledit Grente, estoient contrains de paier a noz ennemis et adverseres, et condescendirent a parler d'un nommé Robin Boudart, <6>lequel estoit prisonnier de nosdiz ennemis a la forteresse d'Aunou et dist icelui Graindorge que ledit Boudart n 'avoit riens voulu paier desdiz appatiz et que c'estoit grant pitié qu'il n'avoit voulu aidier aux autres quant ilz avoient esté prins, et <7> que mallegangne envoiast Dieu a ceulx <8>qui lui aideroient. Lequel Grente, oyant ces paroles, indigné contre ledit Graindorge, lui dist : « Mais a ton visaige, tu as fait que faulx garson de le dire ». Lequel Graindorge, en soy excusant, dist alors audit Grente : « Sauve vostre grace, je ne suis point garson ! » Lequel Grente dist : « Si es et as fait que faulx garson de l’avoir dit ». Lequel Graindorge dist lors a icelui Grente qu'il avoit menti comme garson avoistre. Et ces paroles dictes, icelui Grente print un pain, <9>dont il voulu fraper ledit Graindorge. Lequel, pour doubte que ledit Grente ne le ferist, se leva de la table pour soy eslongnier d'icelui Grente. Et aussi se leva ledit Grente et print icelui Graindorge a deux poings a la gorge, et convint que ceulx <10>qui presens estoient se levassent pour lui oster ledit Graindorge d'entre ses mains. Et ce fait, eulx <11>qui les avoient departiz retournerent eulx asseoir
Chapter 2. Corpus and methodology 42
a la table, cuidans que ledit Grente se rasseist semblablement. Et quant icelui Grente les vit rassis et qu'ilz furent esloingnez de luy, il se print a courre après ledit Graindorge, <12>lequel il print derechief a la gorge a deux poings, <13>dont il l'estraingnoit tres fort, come se il le voulsist estrangler. Lequel Graindorge lui dist pluseurs foiz qu'il laschast sa prinse ou qu'il le lui feroit bien laschier. Et pour ce que ledit Grente n'en voult riens fere et que ledit Graindorge doubtoit qu'il le estranglast ; icelui Graindorge tira son coustel et frappa ledit Grente ung coup entre deux costez. A l'occasion duquel cop, icelui Grente, <14>come l'en dit, ala de vie a trespassement, par mauvaise garde ou autrement, dedans trois jours ensuivans ledit cas advenu. Pour lequel cas, icelui Graindorge, doubtant rigueur de justice, s'est absenté et n'ose converser ne repairier au pais... Si donnons en mandement par ces presentes au bailli de Caen ... Donné a Paris, l’an de grace mil CCCC XXXI, le xxiiije jour de decembre et de nostre regne l’an dixiesme. Ainsi signé : Par le Roy, a la relacion du Conseil. Lommot.48
<1>, <2>, <3>, <5>, <6>, <9>, <12> and <13> are non-restrictive relative clauses, <4>, <8>, <10> and <11 >are restrictive relative clauses and <14> bears a comparative value.49
2.2.3.1 Syntactic annotation of LDR 1431, 201
The syntactic annotation of each of the embedded sentences is now dealt with. It is done in groups following the sentence types and starts with the non-restrictive relative clauses.
<1> [en l’ostel d'un nommé Jehan Rousselaie,] ouquel icelui Graindorge et in the house of.a named Jehan Rousselaie to.which this Graindorge and pluseurs autres estoient alez veoir la femme d'icelui Rousselaie several others were gone to.see the wife of.this Rousselaie ‘in the house of a man named Jehan Rousselaie, to which this Graindorge and several others had gone to see the wife of this Rousselaie’
48 There is no entire translation of LDR 1431, 201. Instead, glosses and a translation for all the examples that are extensively discussed in the following are provided. 49 For <7>, a complement clause containing a fronted direct object, see further down.
Chapter 2. Corpus and methodology 43
In <1>, we have a determined Nominal Phrase (DP) en l’ostel d'un nommé Jehan Rousselaie as relative head.50 The DP refers to a clearly identified place, namely the house of Jehan Rousselaie. The relative clause gives additional information about the context and is to be classified as a non-restrictive relative clause. The DP is relativized by a Prepositional Phrase (PP) containing the relative clause item (RCI) lequel (ouquel = P: à + RCI: lequel). aler is a lexical verb that is realized as an analytic verb form: estoient alez. There is no adjacency51 between the finite part of the verb and the subordinate item (SI), since the subject of the subordinate clause is in between both. The latter is therefore preverbal (pre) and overtly realized as a DP52. There is no fronting varying the canonical subject-verb order in <1>. The coding is summarized as follows:
relative finite verb subject SI fronting head type form adjacency SI type position DP PP: ouquel lexical analytic 0 DP pre 0
Table 4. Syntactic annotation of <1>
<2> [la femme d'icelui Rousselaie] qui gesoit d'enfant the wife of.this Rousselaie who gave birth of.child ‘the wife of this Rousselaie who gave birth to a child’
In <2>, the relative head is a DP whose discourse referent is clearly identified. The relative clause is introduced by the RCI qui and provides further information on the DP. Hence, <2> is non-restrictive. The verb is lexical and a synthetic verb form is used. The finite verb and the SI are adjacent. Since the subject is overtly expressed by the RCI, it is coded as such; no further coding for the position of the subject is needed. Furthermore, we do not have any fronted elements in the clause. To sum up, the annotation sequence for <2> is given in table 5.
relative finite verb subject SI fronting head type form adjacency SI type DP qui lexical synthetic 1 RCI 0
Table 5. Syntactic annotation of <2>
50 Note the square brackets in <1>. Square brackets are used in this section in order to indicate the relative heads. 51 In cases of yes-/no-annotations, 1 means that the element in question is present while 0 corresponds to a lack. 52 There is no extra column to code for overt realization. Instead, the subject type is marked 0, if the subject is not overtly realized.
Chapter 2. Corpus and methodology 44
<3> [un appellé Jehannin Grente], lequel se assist a la table près
a named Jehannin Grente who REFL sat at the table near dudit Graindorge to.the.said Graindorge ‘a man named Jehannin Grente, who sat down at the table near to the said Graindorge’
In <3>, we have once again a clearly referring DP as relative head, which is relativized by the RCI lequel. Since the relative clause provides further information on the discourse context, it is non-restrictive. The lexical verb is used in a synthetic form and as for <2> the RCI corresponds to the subject in the subordinated sentence. Object clitics like se are not counted as disturbing the adjacency between the finite verb and the SI, they are not counted as fronted elements, either. Hence, both are adjacent and there is not any fronted element. Compare table 6 for the corresponding coding.
relative finite verb subject SI fronting head type form adjacency SI type DP lequel lexical synthetic 1 RCI 0
Table 6. Syntactic annotation of <3>
<5> [la parroisse de Bellou], où demouroit ledit Grente the parish of Bellou where stayed the.said Grente ‘the parish of Bellou, where the said Grente lived’
In <5>, the relative clause is headed by a clearly identifiable DP and introduced by the RCI où. The relative clause gives further information on the discourse context and is therefore non- restrictive. The lexical verb is used in a synthetic form. The finite verb and the SI are adjacent, thus we do not have fronting. The subject is overtly realized by a postverbal (post) DP.
relative finite verb subject SI fronting head type form adjacency SI type position DP où lexical synthetic 1 DP post 0
Table 7. Syntactic annotation of <5>
<6> [un nommé Robin Boudart], lequel estoit prisonnier de nosdiz ennemis a named Robin Boudart who was prisoner of our.said enemies a la forteresse d'Aunou
Chapter 2. Corpus and methodology 45
at the fortress of.Aunou ‘a man named Robin Boudart, who was prisoner of our said enemies at the fortress of Aunou’
In <6>, the relative head is a DP relativized by the RCI lequel, which corresponds to the subject in the subordinated sentence. The discourse reference of the relative head is clear; the relative clause itself provides further information on him and is therefore labelled as non-restrictive. The verb être is used in a synthetic form and is adjacent to the RCI. Consequently, there is not any fronting in <6>. Compare table 8 for the corresponding coding.
relative finite verb subject SI fronting head type form adjacency SI type DP lequel être synthetic 1 RCI 0
Table 8. Syntactic annotation of <6>
<9> [un pain], dont il voulu fraper ledit Graindorge
a bread RCI he wanted to.hit the.said Graindorge ‘a bread with which he wanted to hit the said Graindorge’
In <9>, the relative head corresponds to an indefinite Nominal Phrase (NPi). It is relativized by the RCI dont. The verb is modal voulu used in a synthetic form. The pronominal (pron) subject of the subordinate clause is preverbal and therefore there is not any adjacency between the finite part of the verb and the SI. <9> does not contain any fronted elements.
relative finite verb subject SI fronting head type form adjacency SI type position NPi dont modal synthetic 0 pron pre 0
Table 9. Syntactic annotation of <9>
<12> [ledit Graindorge], lequel il print derechief a la gorge a deux poings the.said Graindorge who he took then at the throat by two fists ‘the said Graindorge, who he took then at the throat by both hands’
In <12>, the relative clause is headed by a DP and introduced by the RCI lequel. The discourse reference of the relative head is clear, the relative clause provides further information on the discourse context and is therefore as non-restrictive. The lexical verb is used in a synthetic form. As for <9>, we do not have any adjacency between the verb and the SI because the pronominal subject is preverbal. We do not have any fronting, either.
Chapter 2. Corpus and methodology 46
relative finite verb subject SI fronting head type form adjacency SI type position DP lequel lexical synthetic 0 pron pre 0
Table 10. Syntactic annotation <12>
<13> [a deux poings], dont il l'estraingnoit tres fort
by two fists RCI he him.strangled very much ‘by both hands with which he strangled him very much’
In <13>, similar to <9>, the relative head deux poings is an NPi in default of an overt realized determiner. Nevertheless, the immediate preceding discourse context provides enough information to identify the NPi as the hands of the subject of the main clause (‘Grente’). The relative clause itself, on the contrary, does not give any further information to identify the references items but develops further the discourse context. It is therefore considered to be non- restrictive. Here, as well as in <9>, the RCI is dont. The verb is lexical and used in synthetic form. Since the pronominal subject of the subordinate clause is preverbal, there is not any adjacency between the finite verb and the SI. Furthermore, there is not any fronting in <13>.
relative finite verb subject SI fronting head type form adjacency SI type position NPi dont lexical synthetic 0 pron pre 0
Table 11. Syntactic annotation of <13>
Next the restrictive relative clauses are surveyed.
<4> [des appatiz] que les parroissiens de la parroisse de Bellou,
local taxes RCI/COMP the parishioners of the parish of Bellou […] estoient contrains de paier a noz ennemis et adverseres were forced of to.pay to our enemies and adversaries ‘local taxes that the parishioners of the parish of Bellou […] were forced to pay to our enemies and adversaries’
In <4>, the relative head is a NPi. Des appatiz can not be identified by reverting to the previous discourse. The relative clause introduced by the RCI que further specifies the reference of the relative head. <4> is therefore a restrictive relative clause. The lexical verb is used in a passive and hence analytical form. There is no adjacency between the verb and the SI since the subject DP is preverbal. We do not have any instance of fronting.
Chapter 2. Corpus and methodology 47
relative finite verb subject SI fronting head type form adjacency SI type position analytic/p pre NPi que lexical 0 DP 0 assive
Table 12. Syntactic annotation <4>
<8> [ceulx] qui lui aideroient those who to.him would.help ‘those who would help him’
In <8>, the relative head corresponds to the demonstrative pronoun (dem) ceux. Its reference items are identified by the relative clause, which is therefore restrictive. The latter is introduced by the RCI qui. The verb is lexical and used in a synthetic form. Since the subject of the relative clause corresponds to the RCI and there is not any fronted element53, the finite verb and the RCI are adjacent.
relative finite verb subject SI fronting head type form adjacency SI type dem qui lexical synthetic 1 RCI 0
Table 13. Syntactic annotation of <8>
<10> [ceulx] qui presens estoient those who present were ‘those who were present’
Likewise, in <10>, the relative head is the demonstrative ceux and its reference is qualified by the restrictive relative clause introduced by qui. The predicate is composed of a finite synthetic verb form of être and the adjective presens. The latter is fronted between the SI and the finite verb, which would have been adjacent otherwise because the subject corresponds to the RCI. Compare table 14a for this part.
relative finite verb subject SI fronting head type form adjacency SI type dem qui être synthetic 1 RCI 1
Table 14a. Syntactic annotation of <10> – general
53 Recall that clitics do not count as fronted elements.
Chapter 2. Corpus and methodology 48
The annotation of the fronting context follows next. The type of the fronted element, which is here an adjective (adj) and functions as a predicative expression, is coded. Since the subject coincides with the RCI, its position is coded in relation to the fronted element as XV54. The RCI and the fronted element are therefore adjacent. Compare table 14b for the corresponding coding of the fronting.
Fronting Type Function Relation subject Adjacency to SI adj predicative XV 1 expression
Table 14b. Syntactic annotation of <10> – fronting
<11> [eulx] qui les avoient departiz they who them had separated ‘they who had separated them’
In <11>, the relative clause is headed by the pronoun eulx. Its discourse referents are further specified by the restrictive relative clause introduced by qui. The verb as such is lexical and used in a synthetic form. The finite part and the SI are adjacent as a consequence of the lack of fronted elements and the coincidence of subject and RCI.
relative finite verb subject SI fronting head type form adjacency SI type pron qui lexical analytic 1 RCI 0
Table 15. Syntactic annotation of <11>
We now turn to the only comparative sentence of the present LDR
<14> come l'en dit as it.one says ‘as one says’
Since this type of comparative clause is undoubtedly headless55, we coded the head as 0. The subordinate item is come, the lexical verb is used in a synthetic verb form. The subject is overtly
54 Here X stands for the fronted element. If there are two or more fronted elements, they are coded as X1, X2, … Xn. 55 For further reflections on headlessness or non-headlessness of various comparative clause types see the upcoming chapter.
Chapter 2. Corpus and methodology 49 realized as pronoun in a preverbal position. There is no fronting. Compare table 16 for the corresponding coding.
finite verb subject head SI fronting type form adjacency SI type 0 come lexical synthetic 0 pron 0
Table 16. Syntactic annotation <14>
To complete the syntactic annotation, the LDR are screened in order to verify if there are instances of fronted elements in other types of subordinate clauses. In the present letter, this is the case in <7>.
<7> et dist icelui Graindorge que […] et que mallegangne envoiast Dieu
and said this Graindorge that and that calamity sent.SUBJ God a ceulx to those ‘and this Graindorge said that God would send calamity to those’
<7> is a complement clause, i.e. a clause that assumes the role of a complement in the main clause, here the direct object of dist. The head is therefore coded as 0 as well. The verb is lexical and is used in a synthetic form. The subject is overtly realized as a DP Dieu in a postverbal position. The finite verb and the SI are not adjacent since there is NPi that is fronted in between them. See table 17a for a summary of the general syntactic annotation.
finite verb subject head SI fronting type form adjacency SI type position 0 que lexical synthetic 0 DP post 1
Table 17a. Syntactic annotation of <7> – general
The fronted NPi is the direct object of the embedded verb. Hence, its function is coded as obj. The subject is postverbal and as there is only a single fronted element, the latter and the SI are adjacent. As a further consequence, the position of the subject in relation to the fronted element is annotated as XVS.
Fronting Type Function Relation subject Adjacency to SI NP obj XVS 1
Table 17b. Syntactic annotation of <7> – fronting
Chapter 2. Corpus and methodology 50
In the next section, the pragmatic annotation of the data is exemplified, focussing on <7> and <10>, the two subordinate sentences exhibiting fronting in LDR 1431,201.
2.2.3.2 Pragmatic annotation
Recall that <7> is a complement clause in a complex sentence consisting of several coordinated main clauses and some embedded sentences. <7> itself is the third complement clause that depends on the main verb dist. For the pragmatic annotation of the two levels <7’> is taken as the basis. Spro stands for the inherent subject and Vpro for the verb to which the complement clause is linked by coordination.
<7’> et Spro Vpro que mallegagne envoiast Dieu a ceulx
and Spro Vpro that calamity sent.SUBJ God to those
The outset ist the external IS of >7>. The IS of the whole complement clause has previously been analysed as a member of the main clause. The complement clause is considered as one discourse referent. On the level of the external IS there are two items to be looked at. On the one hand, there is the non-overtly expressed subject which is coreferential to icelui Graindorge; on the other hand, there is the complement clause. With respect to the IS status, the subject is given. The referent is not only mentioned in the first part of the present coordinate structure, but also in previous parts of the text, since he is the supplicant who requests for grace. The status of the complement clause, on the contrary, is to be labelled as new, because he cannot be inferred from world knowledge nor from the previous discourse (to any extent). With regard to the IS value, the decision tree by Steiner (2014) is applied. For the subject, questions a. to d. and f. to I are negated. The answers to e. and i. are affirmative. The conclusion therefore is that the subject is a familiar topic. Concerning the complement clause, question a. is negated and question b. approved. The answer to question c. is no. Consequently, the focus decision tree is put to use. Question a. is approved, questions b. and c. are negated. The answer to question d. is yes and the complement clause is labelled as bearing a new information focus (NIF). The full external pragmatic annotation is shown in table 18a.
Level et Spro Vpro que mallegagne envoiast Dieu a ceulx IS status giv new IS value familiar NIF Table 18a. External IS of <7>
Chapter 2. Corpus and methodology 51
Next the internal IS of <7> is examined. There are three discourse referents to be analysed: the fronted elements mallegage, Dieu, and a ceulx. To begin with the IS status, Dieu is inferable from world knowledge and therefore labelled as accessible. A ceulx refers to an entity with can be identified by deitic means and by the following relative clause and, therefore, it is labelled as accessible. The fronted element is neither given nor inferable by any means and therefore has to be labelled as new. For the sake of completeness the IS value of the internal discourse referents is determined by using Steiner’s (2014) decision trees. For the fronted element, the questions a. and c. of the topic tree have to be negated, question b. is approved. Following the focus decision tree, the answer to question a. is yes, question b. and c. are negated. The answer to question d. is yes, and the complement clause is labelled as bearing a new information focus (NIF). For Dieu, the decision tree on topics leads to question h. whose answer is yes: Dieu bears an aboutness topic value. A ceulx is more complicated to analyse and a bigger context needs to be taken into account. Starting with the topic decision tree, questions a. to d. are answered withe no. Question e. cannot easily be answered. Assuming that the answer is yes, question f. of the topics’ decision tree is then crucial. By looking closer at the LDR, one notices that the verb of the relative clause aider, which helps identifying the referents of ceux, is used twice in the complex sentence. Some lines before, a certain il, coreferential to a given discourse referent Boudart, is mentioned who has not helped the others.56 The argumentation is that Boudart and the present discourse referent ceulx are therefore semantically contrasted with each other.57 Consequently, the question is whether a ceulx bears a focus or a topic value. According to question b. of the focus decision tree, ceulx can only bear focus if the corresponding contrasted element il bears focus, too. Since il is part of a complex embedded context, this is not an easy task.58 Likewise, the determination of the IS value is ambiguous. The external IS of the subordinated clause was earlier analysed as being new, and bearing NIF. This suggests that the subordinate sentence is thetic, i.e. without a topic in the sense of Lambrecht (1996). After several tours on the IS value decision tree, the annotation was stopped. As can be seen in table 18b, the annotation of internal IS remains incomplete.
56 Compare i. i. et [dist] que c'estoit grant pitié qu'il n'avoit voulu aidier aux autres. ‘and said that it was a real pity that he had not wanted to help the others.’ 57 Compare question f. of the topics’ decision tree. 58 Il is found in a subordinated clause which is dependent of another embedded clause, a complement clause of the main context dist que.
Chapter 2. Corpus and methodology 52
Level que mallegagne envoiast Dieu a ceulx IS status new acc acc IS value ? ? ?
Table 18b. Internal IS of <7>
The next item is the restrictive relative clause containing a fronted element. Recall the broader context of <10> in <10’>.
<10’> et convint que [ceulx] qui presens estoient se levassent
and was.necessary that those who present were REFL got.SUBJ up ‘and it was necessary that those who were present got up’
<10> in contrast to <7> is a relative clause embedded in an embedded complement clause. The complement clause is new, thetic, and bears NIF.59 The only discourse referent of the complement clause is the head of our relative clause ceulx. As for ceulx in <7>, the IS status is labelled as acc, since it refers to an entity with can be identified by deictic means and by the following relative clause. The information in the relative clause itself does not have a total duplicate status but since the presence of other people is mentioned at the beginning of the LDR, it is labelled as given. As mentioned above, the complement clause is thetic and should therefore not contain an element bearing a topic value. Analysing the IS value by concentrating on the focus decision tree, the answer to the first question is no, therefore ceulx cannot bear focus. The assumption is that ceulx is part of the background and does not bear an IS value. As a consequence, the determination of the internal IS values seems impossible, too.60 The preliminary annotation of the double external IS is shown in table 19a.
Level convint que ceulx qui presens estoient se levassent IS status new IS value thetic / NIF IS status acc giv IS value 0
Table 19a. External IS of <10>
59 As a discourse referent it is not accessible (question 2 on IS status); the answer to question a. in the topic decision tree is yes since it is the complement clause of convint que, i.e. it happened that. Regarding the focus decision tree, question a. is answered yes, questions b. and c. are negated, question d. is answered yes. 60 Of course, although having tried, the next paragraph shows that even the internal IS’ status is not completely clear.
Chapter 2. Corpus and methodology 53
With respect to the internal IS status, further problems were encountered: since the fronted element is not a classical discourse referent, its IS status cannot be determined by means of the given decision tree. Therefore, in order to account for fronted elements that are not discourse referents, it became necessary to adapt it for the present purposes. This is illustrated by (28) and will be discussed extensively in sections 3.2.1 and 3.2.5.
(28) Is the fronted element a verb, an adjective or an adverb and was the same element or a semantically near element used in the previous discourse? x yes, the same element was used already: label element as given (giv) x yes, the a semantically near element was used already: label element as accessible (acc) x no: label element as new
With regard to the internal IS of <10> and the fronted element presens, the conclusion is that the latter has to be labelled as new. Since the same adjective has not been used before, a relation of semantic proximity can be established.
Level ceulx qui presens estoient IS status new IS value ?
Table 19b. Internal IS of <10>
As well as for <7> as illustrated in table 15b, the annotation of internal IS remains incomplete, since Steiner’s (2014) decision tree on the IS value did not give any results. The impression that the decision tree on IS value cannot be applied to this data was confirmed by the first round of coding, hence, the IS status tree was put to use only.
2.2.4 Statistical tests
For the present study, the two main fields of statistics were taken into account. One the one hand, descriptive statistics was used in order to describe the data. For each of the coded values introduced above, its distribution across the different variables, and the evolution of the frequency of these variables were evaluated with respect to the two different parts of the corpus. The results are detailed in chapter 3. However, there were some values for which the distribution of the values remained stable, as for instance the type of finite verb used in embedded sentences with and without frontings, or too few occurrences were found as for direct speech. Of five occurrences found in total, only one exhibited a fronting element. Since this
Chapter 2. Corpus and methodology 54 does not correspond to a critical mass of data, it was decided not to retain the distinction between direct speech and other parts in the following. Furthermore, with respect to the pragmatic coding of external and internal IS, the result was that the coding of the external IS of relative clauses could not be maintained, as Steiner’s (2014) decision tree for the IS value resulted in not achieving any results for a large majority of the data as illustrated for the case of <10> above.
On the other hand, inferential statistical methods were used, i.e. statistical tests with R were run in order to test hypotheses and to derive an underlying distribution of the given data. Results are to be found at the end of chapter 3. However, in anticipation of that part, it should be noted here that, with respect to the distribution of the different finite verb types, this value resulted to be not pertinent for an inferential statistical model, either. To summarize, there is no description of the results of the different finite verb types, of the occurrences found in direct speech, or for the external IS of the embedded clauses in chapter 3.
Chapter 3. Description and results 55
3. Description and results
In the present chapter, the results of the evaluation of the corpus based on the annotation procedure previously established in section 2.2 are presented. The description is divided into two parts along the lines of the prevceding chapter, namely a description of the structural and the functional properties of the coded sentences.
3.1 Structural properties
In the following, the structural properties of the coded sentences are summarized. Overall, 1219 instances are coded, 534 for the first period and 685 for the second period. As outlined in the previous chapter, the codings focus on relative and comparative clauses, of which all occurrences are annotated. Furthermore, other subordinate sentences implying a fronting context are coded.
Before turning to the different clause types, some observations on fixed fronting structures are necessary. In contemporary French, the word order of ‘bon + object pronoun + semble’ is fixed in sentences like (1) and (2).
(1) Faites ce que / comme bon vous semble Do what as good to.you seems ‘Do what/as it seems good to you.’
(2) *Faites ce que / comme vous semble bon Do what as to.you seems good ‘Do what/as it seems good to you.’
The same structures are found in the data, hence the question is whether the structure in (1) is already fixed by then or whether there are occurrences with postposition of bon in the same subordinate contexts. In the data, bon is always fronted to semble, therefore, one cannot grant that these occurrences were not already lexicalized at the time of the present LDR. As a consequence, occurrences composed of bon semble are counted as instances of fronting. Apart from bon semble, there is another structure that is recurrent in the data: dit est. It is similarly used in combination with ce que and comme but can vary to some degree. For instance, there are occurrences where dit is postponed to the finite verb and with an adverb in the fronted position (3).
Chapter 3. Description and results 56
(3) comme dessus est dit as above is said ‘As it is said above.’ (1423, 22)
(4) ? ce que / comme est dit
what as is said ‘What/ as it is said.’
Hence, the structure is less fixed than bon semble. However, there are no occurrences of the type of (4). It was therefore decided to likewise exclude these occurrences and structures of the type of (3) from the data in order to prevent interferences by already lexicalized structures at the time of our LDR.
Finally, the fronted PP pour Dieu ‘for God’s sake’ used as an interjection is found three times in the corpus.61 Consider the following example:
(5) lequel disoit que pour Dieu il ne vousist mal faire
who said COMP for God he NEG should.want bad make ‘Who said that for God’s sake, he should not hurt him’ (1358,115)
In the corpus, instances of pour Dieu outside embedded clauses are always fronted, too. Hence, the position of pour Dieu is taken to be fixed excluding the three occurrences of the data.
Consider the following table 1 for an overview on the (remaining) coded structures.
1357-1360 1423-1433 total fronting total fronting relative clauses 342 61 507 73 comparative clauses 117 27 123 30 other 75 75 55 55 total 534 163 (30,5%) 685 158 (23,1%)
Table 1. Sentences types. Data overview.62
61 Namely in the LDR 1358,115 and 1432,211. 62 Percentages were rounded off, upwards or downwards, to one decimal place depending on the second digit. Hence, it is possible that the sum of all percentages is not equal to 100%.
Chapter 3. Description and results 57
For both periods, relative clauses represent the majority of all data. With respect to the absolute number of clauses implying a fronting context, however, the distribution is different. At least for the first period, fronting is most frequent in other subordinate contexts (46,3% vs. 35,6%). Relative clauses represent 37,4% of all fronting contexts of the first and 46,5% for the second period. In conformity with the overall data, comparative fronting structures represent the smallest proportion of the three clause types (16,6% vs. 19,0%).
To complete the present introduction, the evolution of fronting contexts is emphasized. They decrease by almost 7,5% and represent less than a quarter of all analysed clauses. By excluding the data of other subordinate contexts,63 the evolution is less important. Fronted contexts in comparative and relative clause represent 19,2% of the respective subgroup for the first period and 16,3% for the second period. In the following, the structural properties according to the specific sentences types are discussed.
3.1.1 Relative clauses
3.1.1.1 Typology of relative clause types
As outlined in the previous chapter, first relative clauses were classified according to the traditional semantic-based distinction between restrictive and non-restrictive relative clauses (Bianchi 2002a,b; Grosu 2002 and references therein). This distinction is somehow problematic with regard to relative clauses that do not fit into this binary approach: headless or ‘standard’ free relatives, correlatives and some types of externally- and internally-headed relatives (Grosu 2002). Any instances of the latter three could not be found in the data, the first were labelled as headless relative clauses. Furthermore, the semantic approach introduced in chapter 2 caused problems with indefinite NPs as relative heads64 and with ambiguous DPs65 as relative heads. Both cases were coded as bare relatives without any further specification. Notwithstanding, one relied on punctuation in cases of relative clause items in sentence-initial position, as in (6) and (7).
63 As there are no overall data for other subordinate contexts, a comparison including these contexts in order to discuss a possible evolution is not reliable. 64 Cf. for further discussion Gapany (2004). 65 Compare for instance the following example i. i. les plus mauvais et crueulx brigans qui soient the worst and most cruel brigands who are.SUBJ (1423, 22)
Chapter 3. Description and results 58
(6) prist un des chevaux des diz Anglois et l’en mena avec le dit suppliant en son hostel. Pour quoy aucuns malveuillans […] se sont traiz pardevers le bailli de Caen he took one of the horses of the said English and took it with the said supplicant
to his house. RCI / For that some malicious persons headed towards the bailiff of Caen (1360,320)
(7) qu'il s'en alast. Lequel, considerant la durté de prison, se destourna
that he should leave. RCI / He, considering the harshness of prison, turned away (1433,229)
A first round of annotation showed that in these cases, there were not any occurrences of “Stylistic Fronting” in the data. In addition, classification of (6) and (7) as instances of relative clauses is moot because (6) pour quoy can also be interpreted as a discourse marker in these cases, while instances of lequel as in (7) can be analysed as subject pronouns.66 Consequently, cases with relative clause items in sentence-initial position were excluded from this corpus.
To summarize, following Bianchi (2002a,b) and Grosu (2002), four types of relative clauses were distinguished: restrictive relative clauses, non-restrictive relative clauses, ambiguous cases, and headless relative clauses. For the first period, a total number of 342 relative clauses is available of which 12 are headless, 146 restrictive, 155 non-restrictive and 29 ambiguous. For the second period, there are 39 instances of headless relative clauses, 180 of restrictive relative clauses, 250 of non-restrictive relative clauses and 38 cases that are ambiguous. With respect to the occurrences including fronting, there are no instances of headless relatives for the first period and about 4 cases for the second period. The proportion of ambiguous cases remains rather stable (4 occurrences for each period). Compare table 2 for an overview.
1357-1360 1423-1433 overall results fronting overall results fronting headless 12 (3,5%) 0 (0%) 39 (7,7%) 3 (4,1%) restrictive 146 (42,7%) 23 (37,7%) 180 (35,5%) 17 (23,3%) non-restrictive 155 (45,3%) 34 (55,7%) 250 (49,3%) 49 (67,1%)
66 Since the scribes do not use comma placement reliably.
Chapter 3. Description and results 59
ambiguous 29 (8,5%) 4 (6,6%) 38 (7,5%) 4 (5,5%) sum 342 61 507 73
Table 2. Overview relative clause types
With respect to fronting, restrictive and non-restrictive relative clauses accordingly represent the majority of the cases for both periods (93,4% vs. 90,4%). In contrast to other sentence types, a significant evolution was observed: the proportion of restrictive relative clauses with fronted elements decreases (from 37,7% to 23,3%) while non-restrictive relative clauses with fronted elements increase by almost 12%. On the one hand, this corresponds to the general decline of restrictive relative clauses between both periods. On the other hand, it is striking that while, for the first period, the proportion of fronting contexts in relative clauses is higher than the overall results; the former is clearly lower than the latter for the second period.
To sum up, by comparing the proportions of fronting with regard to the overall results, there is an obvious evolution for relative clause contexts including fronting. They decline by 4,4%.
3.1.1.2 Relative heads
In the data, it was distinguished between several types of relative heads. Cases of coordinated relative structures as in (8) were annotated separately.
(8) ledit suppliant, qui […], et qui, au commencement de karesme derrain passé, acheta d’un Anglois nommé Jehan Langhin, capitaine de Chambray, certain nombre de caques de harenc the said supplicant, who […], and who, at the beginning of last Lent bought from an Englishman named Jehan Langhin, captain of Chambray, a certain number of barrels of herring (1424,49)
Since there was not any significant effect on the investigated phenomenon, they were finally included into the following according to the type of the relative head they belonged to.67
The following types of relative heads were distinguished:
67 There were 22 occurrences of coordinated structures in the first period versus 18 in the second.
Chapter 3. Description and results 60
(9) Definite noun phrases ou cas ou il eust creu le conseil de ses diz cirurgiens
in.the case RCI he had believed the advice of his said surgeons (1358,80)
(10) Indefinite noun phrases un nommé Robin le Fevre, lequel se assist avec eulx pour boire
a named Robin le Fevre who REFL sat with them to drink (1424,25)
(11) Demonstrative pronouns de ce qu’il ont levé et despensé […] du subside dessusdit,
of that RCI.they have taken and spent of.the subsidy above-said il rendent bon et leal compte they give good and loyal report (1357, 25)
(12) Personal pronouns eulx qui les avoient departiz they who them have separated (1431, 201)
Definite noun phrases, as in (9), constitute the majority of relative heads (61,5% vs. 64,5%). To state precisely my conception of relative clauses and of definite noun phrases as relative heads, compare the following example (13) to (9):
(13) jusques a la saint Michiel derrain passée ou environ, que un petit enfant until to the last feast of St. Michael or round about that a little child […] l’a revélé it.has revealed ‘Until the last feast of St. Michael or by then when a little child has revealed it.’ (1424, 70)
At first sight, la saint Michiel derrain passée ou environ could perfectly constitute a relative head relativized by que. Nonetheless, bear in mind that there is no specific relative clause item
Chapter 3. Description and results 61 in French that relativizes temporal structures. In Modern French, où is the relative clause item used by default.68 Consider then the definition of Grosu (2002: 145) given in (14).
(14) a. A relative clause is subordinated. b. A relative clause includes, at some level of semantic representation, a variable that ultimately gets bound in some way by an element of the matrix.
Along these lines, the argument is that cases as (13) are not canonical cases of relative clauses and should be taken as temporal adverbial clauses. In cases of subordinated clauses implying fronting, they are analysed as ‘other’.69
The second largest group of relative heads are indefinite noun phrases, as (10), ranging up to 26,1% and 23,9% for the first and second period, respectively. Constructions composed of a demonstrative as relative head, as in (11), represent roughly one-tenth of all cases (9,7% vs. 11,1%). They were only coded as relative clauses, if the subordinating item clearly bears a relative function, i.e. a syntactic function other than subordinator within the subordinated clause.70 Moreover, occurrences with a clear interrogative reading of ce que were not taken into account.71 There are only few instances of personal pronouns used as relative heads as in (12) (5 vs. 1).
Grouped as ‘other’, for the first period, there are 3 instances of là and accordingly one combination of a DP with là, always combined with the relative clause item où. The function
68 In this data, there is a single occurrence exhibiting this usage. i. Lequel suppliant, soy voiant ainsi trouvé avec iceulz brigans où il leur avoit livré lesdites aguillectes et autres menues choses This supplicant seeing himself found in that way with those brigands RCI he had delivered to them the said and other minor things (1424, 29) 69 Even though, neither the relative nor the temporal interpretation of où is ambiguous (On the semantics of où see next section). Hence, one could likewise argue that que assumes this role here, cf. Muller (1996: 68f.). 70 Compare Muller (1996: 34f.) on the different uses of ce que as a complementizer and a neutral relative clause item. See also the discussion on (13) above. Therefore, constructions such as i. were coded as ‘other’. i. jusques a ce que nagueres il lui fut enchargié par ung confesseur until COMP recently proexpl him was infliged by a confessor (1425, 91) If the relative function was unclear such as in ii., they were coded as other, too. ii. Pour ce que par le rapport des mires a esté rapporté aus chevaliers. For COMP/RCI by the report of doctors has been reported to the knights (1357, 1) Consider also the discussion of ce que dit est for (3) and (4) above. 71 Think for instance of occurrences such as i. i. Il me demandait ce que je faisais là. He asked me what I was doing there. Clear interrogative reading was understood to be a [+interrogative] feature introduced by the main clause verb.
Chapter 3. Description and results 62 of là has not been discussed in the literature to this point.72 According to Gapany (2004: 142), French relative clauses introduced by où realize an amalgam of the “démarcatif” and a pronominal NP with the same semantic information as là, which cannot be bound. Since Gapany (2004) works on contemporary French, one might argue along these lines that là où in former variants of French was still possible. Since no instances of là as a single relative clause item were found, it was coded as a head taking the single instance of a DP combined with là as an over-specification. One could also argue that the combination of là où corresponds to a relative clause item73 and consequently would count 3 more instances of headless relative clauses and one more instance of a DP head.74
For the second period, only the case of (15) was grouped as ‘other’.
(15) le xiij e jour de juillet derrenierement passé, jour de dimenche, icelui Guillaume la Chose avoit disné en l'ostel de la femme qui fu Jehan Chambre, jadis escuier the 13th day of last July, Sunday, this Guillaume la Chose has had lunch in the house of the wife who was Jehan Chambre, formerly equerry (1432, 220)
Here the reference element for the relative clause is not clear. It is implausible to take the head la femme as head of the relative clause, since the name is clearly masculine.
The following table is a summary. The absolute number of cases was put in relation to the instances containing fronted elements.
1357-1360 1423-1433 overall fronting overall fronting DP 203 (61,5%) 36 (59,0%) 302 (64,5%) 51 (72,9%) indefinites 86 (26,1%) 15 (24,6%) 112 (23,9%) 9 (12,9%) demonstrative pronouns 32 (9,7%) 7 (11,5%) 52 (11,1%) 10 (14,3%) personal pronouns 5 (1,5%) 3 (4,9%) 1 (0,2%) 0
72 Neither Kleiber (1987) nor Godard (1988) work on relative où. Furthermore, there are no diachronic studies on là où to be found so far. 73 See the next section for the definition of relative clause item. 74 Since there is no instance containing stylistic fronting among those occurrences, this question was left open. For the second part of the corpus there are no occurrences of là ou.
Chapter 3. Description and results 63
other 4 (1,2%) 0 1 (0,2%) 0 total 330 69 468 70
Table 3. Relative heads
Deviation between the absolute percentages and the percentages including fronting are existent, but, as mentioned in chapter 2, the statistical tests that were run showed no significance of any category on fronting.
3.1.1.3 Relative clause item
The present section takes a closer look at the distribution of relative clause items. Relative clause items (RCI) are understood to be the element which relativizes overtly the relative head, i.e. what is commonly called “relative pronoun”75. However, this term is not adequate in all cases; compare for instance the use of relative où, which corresponds to that of an adverb and not to a pronoun. Consequently, there are various other terms in the relevant literature as for instance “forme relative“ (Godard 1988; Kunstmann 1990), “Subordinator” respectively “Relativpartikel” (Lehmann 1984), “terme QU-“ (Muller 1996), or more recently “Relativkomplementierer” (Grewendorf and Weiß n.d.) or “relativer Ausdruck” (Holler 2013). It was decided to use ‘relative clause item’ (RCI) as a neutral term.
In this corpus, all current French RCI are used. In the following, variation in gender, number or orthography is not specified. Instances of /lequel/ can therefore be les quieux, laquelle laquele etc. Furthermore, it was proceeded from the top to the bottom. The proportion of qui is of 34,8% for the first and 38,5% for the second period. RCI que was used at a rate of 28,9% in the first and 24,3% in the second part of the corpus. The use of où increases slightly as well (9,9% vs. 12,6%), whereas /lequel/ decreases (8,5% vs. 6,8%). Dont is used more than twice as often in the second part compared to the first part (4,4% vs. 9,4%). Turning to RCI used in combination with prepositional phrases, PP/lequel/ represent 10,8% of the occurrences of the first and 7,9% of the second period. Other combinations with qui, quoy or où are sporadic (cf. table 4 further down).
75 See for instance in grammars (Riegel et al. 2008), in linguistic textbooks (van Gelderen 2013) or in specific syntactic work on relative clauses (Touratier 1980).
Chapter 3. Description and results 64
By looking loser at the data containing fronted elements, one notes that qui represent the large majority of cases for both periods (67,2% vs. 63,0%). As well as for the overall data, que is the second most used RCI but its proportion decreases between the first and the second period (18,0% vs. 11,0%). The proportion of /lequel/ decreases, too, but to a smaller extent (13,1% vs. 11,0%) and in comparison to the overall data there is an uptick: its proportion is about 4,5% higher in fronting contexts than in the overall data. Altogether, RCI that can take over the function of syntactic subject or object represent almost the absolute majority of the data of fronted elements for the first period. However, for the second period, a substantial rise of non- subject and non-object RCI such as dont, où and PP /lequel/ is observed, representing about 15% altogether compared to a single occurrence of PP /lequel/ for the first period. This rise is not due to inter-speaker variation, since there are only 3 occurrences produced by the same scribe.76
1357-1360 1423-1433 overall fronting overall fronting qui 119 (34,8%) 41 (67,2%) 195 (38,5%) 46 (63,0%) que 99 (28,9%) 11 (18,0%) 123 (24,3%) 8 (11,0%) où 34 (9,9%) 0 6477 (12,6%) 4 (5,5%) /lequel/ 29 (8,5%) 8 (13,1%) 34 (6,7%) 8 (11,0%) dont 15 (4,4%) 0 47 (9,3%) 4 (5,5%) PP /lequel/ 37 (10,8%) 1 (1,6%) 40 (7,9%) 3 (4,1%) PP qui 6 (1,8%) 0 1 (0,2%) 0 PP quoy 2 (0,6%) 0 3 (0,6%) 0 PP où 1 (0,3%) 0 0 0 Sum 342 61 507 73
Table 4. Overview Relative clause item
A closer look is taken into these syntactic functions of RCI. The aim is not to do a precise typology of RCI in Medieval French, since this issue has been abundantly addressed.78 As relative clauses are considered to be the most favourable context of fronting with regard to subject extraction (Franco 2009), the focus here is on the function of RCI as subject. First there
76 In LDR 1424, 63 and 1433, 229, which are both signed by Chembaut. 77 One instance combined with dont was counted here since its value was clearly locative as illustrated by i. i. combien que en soy retournant dont où il estoit (1424, 25) ‘how often he returned from where he was.’ 78 For a detailed, general overview on the functions of Medieval French RCI, cf. Kunstmann (1990).
Chapter 3. Description and results 65 is a general survey of subject types in relative clauses and after that a detailed account of the relation between the subject and specific RCI based on the subset of fronting data is given.79
1357-1360 1423-1433 subject= RCI 141 (41,2%) 223 (44,0%) subject=non-overt 19 (5,6%) 18 (3,6%) pronoun 95 (27,8%) 179 (35,3%) DP 68 (19,9%) 74 (14,7%) expletive 8 (2,3%) 6 (1,2%) NPi 8 (2,3%) 6 (1,2%) DP+pronoun 2 (0,6%) 0 demonstrative 1 (0,3%) 1 (0,2%) total 342 507
Table 5. Subjects in relative clauses
Comparing RCI to the different other types’ subjects used in this data, one notes that they represent the subject in the relative majority of the coded data (41,2% vs. 44%). There are few instances of non-overt realized subjects (5,6 vs. 3,6%). Taken together, about 47% of the occurrences in both periods imply contexts where the subject is not overtly realized by (pro-) nouns.
This distribution is convergent with the Accessibility Hierarchy established by Keenan and Comrie (1977), according to whom subjects are the most accessible to relativization. Recall their definition of Accessibility Hierarchy in (16):
(16) Accessibility Hierarchy SU > DO > IO > OBL > GEN > OCOMP80
Being the most accessible does not mean that subject RCI represent the absolute majority of cases, but only a relative majority. Comparing the results of table 4 to the data presented in the previous table and taking into account the RCI other than qui, /lequel/ or que, there are about 27,8% occurrences for the first and 30,5% for the second period. These occurrences divide into
79 For the overall view on subjects used in relative clauses, see next section. 80 Cf. Keenan and Comrie (1977: 66). SU being ‘subject’, DO ‘direct object’, IO ‘indirect object’, OBL ‘oblique case’, GEN ‘genitive’ or ‘possessor’, OCOMP ‘object of comparison’
Chapter 3. Description and results 66 the functions of IO, OBL, or GEN cases. The remaining cases are by deduction cases of DO (31% vs. 25;5%).
For a more detailed look into the distribution of the subject per RCI in this data, the focus was laid on the occurrences including fronting. A multidimensional frequency distribution produced the following results (cf. table 6a and 6b).
Subject= RCI Subject=non-overt Subject = other81 qui 41 – – que 4 4 3 /lequel/ 7 0 1 PP /lequel/ 0 0 1 Sum 52 4 5
Table 6a. Frequency of subject type in relation to RCI. 1357-1360
In both periods, qui is always used as the subject in the relative clause. Concerning /lequel/, there is only one instance per period where this RCI is not used as the subject of the relative clause. Que bears the subject four times for the first period but only once for the second period. Together with the occurrences of non-overt realized subject (pro), there are 72,7% of cases including que and fronting for the first period, while, for the second period, they only represent one half of the data. Concerning the RCI dont, où and PP /lequel/, since any of them can function as a subject, the occurrences are distributed between non-overt realized subjects and (pro-) nominal subjects with a slight preference for the latter.
Subject = RCI Subject = non-overt Subject = other qui 46 – – que 1 3 4 /lequel/ 7 0 1 dont 0 2 2 où 0 1 3 PP /lequel/ 0 1 2 Sum 54 7 12
Table 6b. Frequency of subject type in relation to RCI. 1423-1433
81 For further details on other subject types, see next section.
Chapter 3. Description and results 67
A closer look at the whole issue shows: RCI bearing the subject function represent the absolute majority for both periods (85,2% vs. 74,0%), followed by RCI assuming the role of the direct object. Thus, on the one hand, it can be concluded that these results are likewise on a par with the Accessibility Hierarchy. However, on the other hand, there is a decrease of subject RCI from the first to the second period which might have an effect on the general evolution of fronting in relative clauses. Next, a closer look is taken at fronted elements in the context of relative clauses and the relation between the subject and the fronted element is addressed in more detail.
3.1.1.4 Fronted elements in relative clauses
To begin with, in the relative clauses of this corpus, a sharp majority includes fronting of a single element (X): for the first period there are only 4 cases (8,2%), implying two fronted elements (XX) and, for the second period, there is one occurrence with two fronted elements (1,4%).82
Table 7 shows the position of the fronted element(s) X and the subject S in relation to the finite verb V.
1357-1360 1423-1433 XV 52 (85,2%) 60 (82,2%) XXV 4 (6,6%) 1 (1,4%) XSV 5 (8,2%) 8 (11,0%) SXV 0 4 (5,5%)
Table 7. Position of the fronted element(s) and the subject with respect to the finite verb
Note that subject RCI were not counted as subjects and figure therefore under the category XV respectively XXV. This approach corresponds to common practice in the context of “Stylistic Fronting”, cf. Franco (2009) and Labelle and Hirschbühler (in press), among others.
As detailed above, the context without a (pro-)nominal subject in the relative clause represents the majority of cases. The (pro-)nominal subject always immediately precedes the finite verb in fronting contexts of the first period,83 but only in the second period – and there rarely – it
82 ‘Element’ and X refer to an entire constituent. 83 This data contain only few instances of postverbal subjects, all occurring in other subordinate contexts, cf. 3.1.3. Across the different sentence types, there are 19 instances of postverbal subjects for the first and 20 for the second period.
Chapter 3. Description and results 68 also precedes the fronted element (5,5%). At first sight these results contradict the results of Labelle and Hirschbühler (in press), who found significantly more SXV than XSV structures. By looking closer at their data, one can observe an evolution: for Middle French, the proportion is reverse for the first time slot (1350-1399) and almost balanced for the second one (1450- 1499). Furthermore, Labelle and Hirschbühler (in press) do not detail which type of embedded clauses had been taken into account. Thus, the deviance between the data can be due to a different proportion of embedded clause types, to different stages of evolution of the respective data, and, finally, to the use of different genre.84
With respect to the type of fronted elements found in relative clauses, PP occur most frequently (44,6% vs. 51,4%), followed by adverbs (32,3% vs. 36,5/%). Together with the rare cases of CP as fronted elements (6,2% vs. 6,8%), their proportion increases for the second period (a total of +11,6% for all 3 groups). Fronted participles (10,8% vs. 0%), infinitives (1,5% vs. 0%), and the group of demonstratives, definite and indefinite full NPs (4,6% vs. 4,1%) decrease accordingly. There is only one occurrence of a fronted adjective for the second period of this corpus. For the detailed proportions of the (pro-)nominal group of fronted elements see the following table:
1357-1360 1423-1433 PP 29 (44,6 %) 38 (51,4%) adverb 21 (32,3%) 27 (36,5%) adjective 0 1 (1,4%) participle 7 (10,8%) 0 CP 4 (6,2) 5 (6,8%) DP 2 (3,1%) 0 infinitive 1 (1,5%) 0 NPi 1 (1,5%) 2 (2,7%) demonstrative 0 1 (1,4%) total 65 74
Table 8. Types of the fronted element85
84 Labelle and Hirschbühler’s (in press) data sample is composed of verse and prose texts, based on the corpus Modéliser le changement: les voies du français, presented in chapter 2. 85 Multiple references are possible, see above.
Chapter 3. Description and results 69
One might claim that these numbers imply a decrease of elements that are nearer to or respectively part of the verb phrase, such as direct objects and participles. In order to substantiate this idea, the syntactic functions of the fronted elements were investigated as shown in Table 9.
1357-1360 1423-1433 adjuncts 37 (56,9%) 61 (82,4%) negation 3 (4,6%) 1 (1,4%) object 9 (13,8%) 8 (10,8%) predicative expression 8 (12,3%) 4 (5,4%) infinite verb form 8 (12,3%) 0 total 65 74
Table 9. Functions of the fronted elements86
To exemplify the different syntactic functions, the following examples were taken into consideration.
(17) Adjunct la brunecte, dont en iceles lettres est faite mencion
the blackbird RCI in these letters is made mention the blackbird, of which in these letters it is made mention’ (1429, 197)
(18) Negation lui qui point ne veoit
he who not NEG saw ‘he who did not see’ (1359, 252)
(19) Object le dit capitaine qui les dites chevilles n’avoit pas oubliees
the said captain who the said dowels NEG.had not forgotten ‘the said captain, who had not forgotten the said dowels’ (1359,190)
(20) Predicative expression touz autres qui en sa compaignie furent
86 Multiple references possible, since there are instances of multiple fronting, see first paragraph of this section.
Chapter 3. Description and results 70
all others who in his company were ‘all others who were in his company’ (1358, 68)
(21) Infinite verb form tout ce que ordené et commandé lui sera par lui
all that RCI ordered and commanded to.him will.be by him ‘everything that will be ordered and commanded to him by him’(1359, 212)
It can be observed that adjuncts represent the majority of data and increase up to 82,4% for the second period. At the same time, all other functions of fronted elements such as negation, objects, predicative expressions, and verbs decrease accordingly (-25,3%). These numbers therefore substantiate the observation made above, there is a decrease of elements that are nearer to, or respectively part of, the verb phrase.
3.1.2 Comparative clauses
3.1.2.1 Comparative clause types
Several authors have highlighted similarities between relative and comparative clauses (Muller 1996 and references therein). As Muller (1996) shows, the relativization is one of the anaphoric relations present in comparative clauses. While in relative clauses the anaphoric relation between the relative noun and the gap filled by the RCI in the relative clause is by default identical, i.e. at least materially identical as in (22), in comparative clauses, this anaphoric relation can be superimposed by the comparative relation (23).87
(22) Luc n’a pas les cheveux qu’avait son père. Luc does not have the hair that his father had
(23) Je devrais avoir la tête (…) telle que les ruminants ont l’estomac. I should have my head (…) such as/like ruminants have their stomach.
One cannot rephrase (23) by using a relative clause. Hence, on the semantic level, comparative clauses differ from relative clauses by establishing an anaphoric relation of the type of a relative
87 Both examples are taken from Muller (1996: 140).
Chapter 3. Description and results 71 clause, which is combined with a quantitative anaphoric relation expressing equality or inequality, sameness or otherness, approximation or deviation.
Syntactically, there are three types of comparative structures: comparatives bearing a nominal complement (24), comparatives bearing a clausal complement (25), and elliptic complements (26) 88 as a variant of the clausal complements.
(24) Je voudrais plus de pain I would like to have more bread
(25) Tu as préparé plus de crêpes qu’on ne mangera You have prepared more crêpes than we will eat
(26) Il vous regarde comme une vieille fille son confesseur He looks at you like an old maid at her confessor
Since the focus of this study is to examine fronting structure with respect to the finite verb, only clausal comparatives as in (25) were coded. In the following, the results of the data are presented with regard to the comparative antecedent, the subordinate item, the subject and its position, and the contexts implying fronting.
3.1.2.2 Comparative antecedent
The element that introduces the comparative value to the sentence is understood to be the comparative antecedent. In relative clauses as well as in comparative clauses, there are also structures bearing no overt comparative antecedent, cf. (27).
(27) ledit pere ne retourna point devers eulx, comme promis l'avoit the said father did not return to them, as promised it.had (1424, 63)
By analogy, they are labelled headless comparatives hereinafter.89
In anticipation of the multidimensional analysis provided in the next section, all instances of headless comparatives bear comme as subordinate item.90 For the first period there are 44
88 Example given by Sandfeld (1965: 449). 89 As far as it is known this term is not used in the relevant literature. 90 The single exception with que in the second period is due to the fact that it is a coordinated structure and the subordinated item is consequently picked up by the complementizer que.
Chapter 3. Description and results 72 occurrences of headless comparatives, for the second period 30. In terms of comparative value all instances of headless comparatives implicate approximation.
Several antecedents in this data express equality: the adverbs ainsi, si, tant and combinations of them.91 With respect to ainsi and si, some evolution seems to go on in the corpus. There is only one instance of comparative ainsi in the first period compared to 18 in the second part. Accordingly, instances of isolated si, while exhibiting the highest percentage for the first period, decrease from 35 to 2 instances. Combined antecedents based on si increase slight from 2,6% to 5,7%. Tant represents about 7,7% of the occurrences of the first period and, in terms of numbers, takes over the role of si in the second period (30,1%). Altogether, cases of equality comparatives represent 41,1% of all instances for the first period and 52,0% for the second period.
In comparison, there are only few instances expressing inequality, and the only comparative adverb used for this purpose is plus. There are no cases for the first period and 7 cases for the second period. Plus is used as a comparative as well as a superlative degree. Fixed instances of these are also counted among plus, for instance (28).
(28) le mieulx qu'il pourroit
the best COMP.he could (1424, 68)
Concerning same- and otherness, in this data, there are only instances of the former. Tel and tellement and their respective combinations represent 21,4% of the comparative instances of the first and 15,4% of the instances of the second period. For further details on the proportions and the possible combinations, see the following table 10.
1357-1360 1423-1433 0 44 (37,6%) 30 (24,4%) ainsi 1 (0,9%) 18 (14,6%) si (+ X) 38 (32,5%)92 9 (7,3%)93 comme 0 2 (1,6%) DP 0 1 (0,8%)
91 The occurrence of combinations is noted by (+X) in what follows. Details on the elements combined the comparative adverbs are given in the corresponding footnotes. 92 3 adjectives. 93 2 adjectives, 2 adverbs, 3 NP.
Chapter 3. Description and results 73
plus (+X) 0 7 (5,7%)94 tant (+X) 9 (7,7%)95 37 (30,1%)96 tel (+X) 12 (10,3%)97 2 (1,6%)98 tellement (+X) 13 (11,1%)99 17 (13,8%) total 117 123
Table 10. Distribution of comparative antecedents.
To my knowledge, there are no studies on comparative clauses in Medieval French that give a survey of the proportions of the different comparative antecedents discussed here.100 The discussion presented above therefore holds for the here presented data only and would need to be compared to other data in general.
3.1.2.3 Subordinate item in comparative clauses
Here are the results of the analysis of the subordinated item in comparative clauses. The rather non-specific term of subordinated item (SI) was chosen for two reasons. First, on the lines of the part on relative clauses, one would expect the use of a term such as ‘comparative clause item’. As can be seen above, the comparative antecedent (if present) also bears a comparative value; the use of ‘comparative clause item’ would therefore be ambiguous. Second, there is some discussion on the status of the two prominent subordinate items in comparative clauses, comme and que. While it is possible to use comme as subordinate item to paraphrase relative clauses introduced by object RCI que (Fuchs and Le Goffic 2008), the use of comparative que in inequality comparatives indicates that the complementizer que and not the RCI que is used. Hereinafter the term subordinate item will be employed.
For the first period, comme and its variant come as well as que are exclusively used with comme representing almost 71% of the SI. For the second period, the situation is different insofar as the proportions of que and comme change, and that there are two occurrences that do not belong to any of the two groups. 83 instances bear que and 22 bear comme (67,5% vs. 30,9%).
94 5 adjectives, 3 NP. 95 7 single occurrences, one combined with an adverb, another with a CP. 96 6 instances bearing an adjective. 97 All NP. 98 One isolated, one combined with a NP. 99 3 instances bearing a participle. 100 Jonas (1971) does not give any numbers for his data, although he does so to some extent for subordinated items.
Chapter 3. Description and results 74
There are two instances of si that are combined with comme as comparative antecedent and that bear the comparative reading given in (29) and (30).
(29) il leur promisist de les leur apporter, come si fist il
he them promised to them to.them bring COMP so did he ‘He promised them to bring them to them, as he did so’ (1424, 29)
(30) il l'estraingnoit tres fort, come se il le voulsist estrangler
he him.strangled very much COMP so he him wanted to.strangle ‘He strangled him very much as though he wanted to strangle him’ (1431, 201)
Hence, the results for comparative subordinate items are as follows:
1357-1360 1423-1433 que 34 (29,1%) 83 (67,5%) comme 83 (70,9%) 38 (30,9%) /si/ 0 2 (1,6%) total 117 123
Table 11. Distribution of subordinated items
To complete the present section, a frequency analysis of the SI in relation to the comparative antecedent used in each sentence is provided. Recall that the adverbs ainsi, si, tant express equality while plus is the only antecedent expressing inequality. Furthermore, tel and tellement share the comparative value of sameness. This will be borne in mind below.
As mentioned in the previous section, headless comparatives are only possible in combination with the SI comme and implicate approximation. This is reflected in the presented data since all instances of headless comparatives of the first period and all except one of the second period are introduced by comme. The single headless instance of the second period bearing que results of a coordinated structure in which the comparative clause is the second conjunct and preceded by first conjunct introduced by comme.
Sameness comparatives generally combine que and the antecedent tel/tellement. For the first period, there are two instances of tel that are used on a par with comme (8%). All the other occurrences of both periods are formed with que.
Chapter 3. Description and results 75
Regarding inequality comparatives, as mentioned above, there are only occurrences of plus for the second part of this corpus. They are exclusively used with que.
In terms of equality comparatives, the distribution of comme and que is less sharp. For the first period, there are 37 of occurrences that combine an equality antecedent with the SI comme in contrast to 11 occurrences with que. For the second period, there are 56 occurrences of ainsi, si and tant concatenated with que and 8 occurrences with comme.
0 ainsi si (+X) tant (+X) tel (+X) tellement (+X) que 0 1 4 6 10 13 comme 44 0 34 3 2 0
Table 12a. Frequency of SI in relation to comparative antecedent. 1357-1360
0 comme ainsi si (+X) DP plus (+X) tant (+X) tel (+X) tellement que 1101 0 15 7 0 7 34 2 17 comme 29 0 3 2 1 0 3 0 0 si 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Table 12b. Frequency of SI in relation to comparative antecedent. 1423-1433
Next, the focus lies on the subject in the analysed comparative clauses.
3.1.2.4 Subjects in comparative clauses
With respect to subject types used in comparative clauses, one main evolution can be observed. While non-overt realized subjects represent one-third of the occurrences of the first period, they only represent 26,0% of the cases of the second period. Accordingly, the context with overt realized subjects increases, namely for DP (+7,2%) and pronouns (+9,1%). Indefinite, expletive, and demonstrative subjects correspond to about 10% of all cases for both periods and vary only little. This goes on a par with the evolution that has been observed in the previous section on relative clauses: the number of non-overt subject contexts decrease.
1357-1360 1423-1433 non-overt subject 49 (41,9%) 32 (26,0%) demonstrative 1 (0,9%) 0 DP 22 (18,8%) 32 (26,0%)
101 As a result of a coordinated structure.
Chapter 3. Description and results 76
expletive 4 (3,4%) 6 (4,9%) indefinite 7 (6,0%) 6 (4,9%) pronoun 34 (29,1%) 47 (38,2%) total 117 123
Table 13. Subject type
There is one occurrence where the determination of the subject was not clear (31).
(31) si comme l’en pour laquele chose debat et riote se mut
so COMP one for this thing debate and riot REFL moved entre le dit Pierre et le dit Martin between the said Pierre and the said Martin (1359, 159)
There are two possible subjects: l’en and debat et riote. In Middle French, l’en is generally used as neutral indefinite subject pronoun102 and this holds also for this data. However, since the verb is the reflexive se mouvoir, debat et riote cannot take the function of a direct object and in addition, a neutral indefinite subject does not make any sense. Therefore, debat et riote was taken to be the subject and it was assumed that l’en is an error of the scribe.
Next, here is a closer look at the distribution of fronting and its particularities.
3.1.2.5 Fronted elements in comparative clauses
Occurrences including fronted elements represent 27 of all cases of comparative clauses in the first period and 30 of all cases of the second period. Similar to the relative clause, there is a clear majority that includes fronting of a single element: for the first period there are three cases implying two fronted elements and one implying four fronted elements; for the second period, there are four occurrences with two fronted elements and one case with four fronted elements.
Here is the realization of subjects in sentences with fronted elements. Table 14 shows the position of the fronted element(s) X and the subject S in relation to the finite verb V.
102 Compare the distribution of l’en versus on in the DMF article on on: http://atilf.atilf.fr/scripts/dmfX.exe?IDF=dmfXrmXmotsgrammaticauxXbec;ISIS=isis_dmf2015.txt;MENU= menu_dmf;OUVRIR_MENU=1;OO1=2;s=s0e363804;LANGUE=FR;FERMER;AFFICHAGE=2;MENU=m enu_dmf;;XMODE=STELLa;FERMER;XXX=4;; last access 13/02/2016.
Chapter 3. Description and results 77
1357-1360 1423-1433 XV 9 (33,3%) 8 (26,7%) XXV 0 1 (3,3%) XSV 13 (48,1%) 14 (46,7%) XXSV 1 (3,7%) 3 (10%) XXXXSV 0 1 (3,3%) SXV 1 (3,7%) 1 (3,3%) SXXV 1 (3,7%) 0 XXXSXV 1 (3,7%) 0 XVS 1 (3,7%) 1 XXVXS 0 1 (3,3%) total 27 30
Table 14. Position of the fronted element(s) X and the subject S in relation to the finite verb V
As a result, the proportion of structures without an overt realized subject decrease by 3,3% between the first and the second period to the benefit of XSV structures, which increase by 8,2% overall. Recall that structures of the type SXV are rare in relative clauses. The same holds for comparative clauses. Hence, it seems that the deviance between these results and the results of Labelle and Hirschbühler (in press), as seen in section 3.1.1.4 on the fronting in relative clauses, is plausibly due to a different stage of evolution of the respective data or to the use of different genre.
With respect to the type of fronted elements found in comparative clauses, PP occur most frequently (65,6% vs. 51,3%). They are followed, for the first period, by adverbs (12,5%) and CP (6,3%). Adjectives, infinitives, participles, DP, pronouns and indefinites are scarce for the first period but, altogether, represent 15,6% of the data. For the second period, there are two cases of indefinites and participles respectively which together represent 10,3% of the data. This loss is in favour of adverbs and CP. Although PPs decrease by 14,3% for the second period, the group of PP, CP and adverbs altogether represent 89,7% of the data for the second period.
Here are the detailed proportions:
1357-1360 1423-1433 PP 21 (65,6%) 20 (51,3%) adverb 4 (12,5%) 7 (17,9%) adjective 1 (3,1%) 0
Chapter 3. Description and results 78
CP 2 (6,3%) 8 (20,5%) DP 1 (3,1%) 0 indefinite 1 (3,1%) 2 (5,1%) participle 1 (3,1%) 2 (5,1%) infinitive 1 (3,1%) 0 total 32 39
Table 15. Types of fronted elements103
Recall the section on relative clauses where there seems to be a tendency to favour adjuncts over elements that are nearer to, or respectively part of, the verb phrase. This applies to comparative clauses accordingly. Adjuncts correspond to 75,8% of the cases of the first period and hold the clear majority in the second period (84,6%). As seen in the previous section on fronting in relative clauses, all other functions such as negation, objects, predicative expressions, and verbs decrease accordingly (-8,8%). While the proportion of predicative expressions increases slightly (6,1% vs. 7,7%), there are no cases of objects for the second period (12,1%). Infinite verb forms decrease by 1% and for the second period, there is one instance of negation (cf. table 16).
1357-1360 1423-1433 adjunct 25 (75,8%) 33 (84,6%) object 4 (12,1%) 0 predicative expressions 2 (6,1%) 3 (7,7%) negation 0 1 (2,6%) infinite verb forms 2 (6,1%) 2 (5,1%) total 33 39
Table 16. Syntactic functions of fronted elements104
These observations substantiate the observation made above: there is a decrease of elements that are nearer to, or respectively part of, the verb phrase. These results corroborate the idea that the growth in adjuncts as fronted elements has an effect on fronting across different sentence types. In order to get a comprehensive view on the situation in subordinate clauses, the occurrences of fronted elements in subordinate contexts other than relative and comparative clauses are now presented.
103 Multiple references possible, see above. 104 Multiple references possible, see above.
Chapter 3. Description and results 79
3.1.3 Fronting in further subordinate contexts
In this corpus, there are fronting contexts in three other types of subordinate clauses: complement clauses (32)), adverbial clauses (33), and conditional clauses (34).
(32) Pour laquelle chose lui doubtant de longue tenue de prisson et que
For this thing he fearing of long holding in prison and COMP par rigueur de justice ne fust pour sui en ceste partie
by rigour of justice NEGexpl was.SUBJ pursued in this part ‘Because of this, he was fearing long imprisonment and that by rigour of justice he would be pursued in this part’ (1360, 286)
(33) jusques a ce que nagueres il lui fut enchargié par ung confesseur
until recently EXPL him was inflicted by a confessor until recently, it was inflicted to him by a confessor’ (1425, 91)
(34) se pour ce les entendoient a poursuir en aucune maniere
if for that them intended.3PL to pursue in any way ‘If because of that, they intended to pursue them in any way’ (1357, 9)
In general, the subordinate item is the complementizer que solely or combined with an adverb; in adverbial clauses as in (33), it can be seen that ce que is a variant of que. There are only 5 instances of conditional clauses, introduced by the conditional se, all belonging to the first part of this corpus. Overall, there are 75 occurrences of fronting for the first period and 55 occurrences for the second period. Multiple fronting is likewise rare: for the first period, four instances of two fronted elements and two occurrences of three fronted elements could be found; for the second period, there are four occurrences of two fronted elements and two occurrences of three fronted elements.
As far as other subordinated contexts are concerned, only coded sentences with fronting are available. So, a general evolution of the rates of subject types cannot be described. Accordingly, only the percentages of the different periods are presented in order to see whether there is any variation. For the first period, the subjects are almost equally distributed among non-overt subjects and pronouns (37,8% vs. 36%). While the number of the former remains almost stable (38,2%), the number of the latter decreases slightly (32,7%). The number of nominal subjects increases for the definite (24% vs. 25,5%) as well as for the indefinite (1,3% vs. 3,6%) subjects.
Chapter 3. Description and results 80
There is only one occurrence of an expletive subject, in the context of an unaccusative construction of the first period, given in (35).
(35) Il estoit avenu que le dimanche aprés la feste Saint Cler l’an de grace mil CCC cinquante et sept … It has happenend that the Sunday after the feast of Saint Claire in the year 1357 … il estoit passé gens d’armes
EXPL was passed gendarmes ‘It happened that on Sunday after the feast of St. Claire in the year 1357, there have passed gendarmes’ (1360,287)
Table 17 provides details.
1357-1360 1423-1433 non-overt subject 28 (37,3%) 21 (38,%) DP 18 (24%) 14 (25,5%) expletive 1 (1,3%) 0 indefinite 1 (1,3%) 2 (3,6%) pronoun 27 (36%) 18 (32,7%) total 75 55
Table 17. Subject types in other subordinate contexts
There is one ambiguous occurrence with regard to the overt realization of the subject (36).
(36) La quele informacion ou informacions se aucunes faites en y a this information or informations if any made ?? have sur ce encontre les diz suppliant et page about this against the said supplicant and page (1360, 320)
One could wonder if the single en is used here as neutral indefinite pronoun. The sentence would make sense but recall that in Middle French and in this data, l’en is generally used as neutral indefinite subject pronoun. Furthermore, the sequence of the pronouns en y is quite frequent as shows the corresponding entry for y in the Dictionnaire du Moyen Français 1330- 1500.105 It was, therefore, labelled (36) as an occurrence containing a non-overt subject.
105 Compare the following: “Il en y a / En y a : Et s'estoient gens de vilages, Norris de lais et de frommages, De chos, de feves, de naviaus ; N'avoient pas tous leur aviaus ; De vin estoient si delivre Que po en y a qui
Chapter 3. Description and results 81
With regard to their position, the majority of the subjects are preverbal. For the first period there is one interverbal106 and one postverbal subject. For the second period, there are 6 postverbal subjects.
The position of the verb with respect to the fronted item(s) and the subject are now the focus of this research. In opposition to the results for comparative and relative clauses, the majority of the contexts are contexts of the XSV type and its variants (49,3% vs. 45,4,%). It is followed by the contexts without overt subject, which represent 38,1% of the occurrences for both periods. Contexts of the SXV type are equally rare, even taking debatable contexts such as XSXV and variants into account, they correspond to 9,2% of the occurrences of the first and 5,4% of the occurrences of the second period. As has already been seen in relative and comparative clause types, it is plausible that the deviance between these results and the results of Labelle and Hirschbühler (in press) is due to a different stage of evolution of the respective data, or to the use of different genre. The remaining cases are instances implying overt subjects in a non- preverbal position. For a complete overview, consider the following table 18.
1357-1360 1423-1433 XV 27 (36,8%) 19 (34,5%) XXV 1 (1,3%) 2 (3,6%) XSV 35 (46,6%) 24 (43,6%) XXSV 2 (2,7%) 1 (1,8%) XSXV 1 (1,3%) 0 XXSXV 1 (1,3%) 0 XSXXV 0 1 (1,8%) SXV 4 (5,3%) 2 (3,6%) SXXXV 1 (1,3%) 0 XSVS 1 (1,3%) 0
s'enyvre, Eins buvoient de la fonteinne Et dou puis jusqu'a pense pleinne. (MACH., D. Lyon, 1342, 213). Anchois, par mescognissanche, soy marient, pluseurs en y at, en quars ou en tir degreit de proismeteit (HEMRICOURT, Miroir Hesb. B.B., 1353-1398, 398). ...il en y a de telles [des cerises] qui sont tres aigres et sures, qui aucunement traient a saveur amere avec celle aigreur, que aucuns appellent amarenes, les autres agriotes (Grant herb. C., c.1450, 97). Tiercement en conseil courroux se doit eviter, car souvent peut advenir que il en y aura de passionnés, et comme courroucez delibereront (JUV. URS., Verba, 1452, 318). Quant ceulx de Crete entendirent l'adjurement du roy, ilz s'assamblerent a conseil et en y eut un qui pour tous les autres eut charge de donner celle response. (LEFÈVRE (R.), Hist. Troyes A., c.1464, 175). [Ordre inverse encore relativement rare] Il y en a / Y en a […]. “http://atilf.atilf.fr/scripts/dmfX.exe?LEM=y%3CEXP%3E2%3C/EXP%3E;MODE=XML;MENU=menu_dm f;FERMER;ISIS=isis_dmf2012.txt;MENU=menu_dmf;OUVRIR_MENU=2;s=s11000e38;LANGUE=FR;FE RMER, last accessed 24th July 2015, 17:08. 106 I.e. between the inflected verb and its participle.
Chapter 3. Description and results 82
XVS 2 (2,7%) 4 (7,3%) XXVS 0 1 (1,8%) XXVXS 0 1 (1,8%) total 75 55
Table 18. Position of the fronted element(s) X and the subject S in relation to the finite verb V
At the end of this chapter the description of the type and function of the fronted elements in other subordinate clauses are presented. With respect to the type, PPs occur most frequently in both periods (61,4%% vs. 54,8%), although there is a difference in comparison to relative clauses but not to comparative clauses, since the proportion decreases by about 6,5% between both periods. As for relative clauses, they are followed by adverbs whose proportion increases for the second period (19,3% vs. 29,0%). There are only a few cases of fronted CPs and, as for PPs, their proportion decreases (4,8% vs. 3,2%). Recall that for relative and comparative clauses, a decline of the fronting of (pro-)nominal and verbal elements was noticed. The same is true for other subordinate contexts: the overall rate decreases by about 3%. There is one case of adjective fronting for each period respectively. For the detailed proportions the following table can be referred to:
1357-1360 1423-1433 PP 51 (61,4%) 34 (54,8%) adverb 16 (19,3%) 18 (29,0%) adjective 1 (1,2%) 1 (1,6%) CP 4 (4,8%) 2 (3,2%) demonstrative 0 2 (3,2%) DP 5 (6,0%) 3 (4,8%) indefinite 3 (3,6%) 2 (3,2%) participle 2 (2,4%) 0 infinitive 2 (2,4%) 0 total 83 62
Table 19. Types of fronted elements107
In concordance with the results on the types in table 19, the results of the syntactic function of fronted elements in other subordinated contexts differ from relative and comparative contexts.
107 Multiple references possible, see above.
Chapter 3. Description and results 83
Adjuncts represent the majority of the data for both periods but their proportion increases (74,7% vs. 67,7%). This loss benefits negation (4,8% vs. 14,5%) and predicative expressions (+4,1%). The proportion of objects decreases by 3,2%.
1357-1360 1423-1433 adjunct 62 (74,7%) 42 (67,7%) negation 4 (4,8%) 9 (14,5%) object 12 (14,5%) 7 (11,3%) predicative expression 2 (2,4%) 4 (6,5%) verb 3 (3,6%)108 0 total 83 62
Table 20. Syntactic function of fronted elements109
This evolution is different to the one seen in relative and comparative clauses. While the proportion of adjuncts decreases here, it increases for the other two contexts. Accordingly, the proportion of verbs as fronted elements increases here, but decreases for relative and comparative clauses. The results of the syntactic annotation on fronted elements are summarized in the next section.
3.1.4 Summary
Recall the table given at the beginning of the present chapter. It represents an overview of the proportions of fronting per clause in comparison to the overall data.
1357-1360 1423-1433 total fronting total fronting relative clauses 342 61 (17,8%) 507 73 (14,4%) comparative clauses 117 27 (23,1%) 123 30 (24,4%) other110 75 75 55 55 total 534 164 (30,5%) 685 157 (23,1%)
Table 21. Sentences types. Data overview.
The findings on the overall evolution of fronting is confirmed since the proportion of fronting decreases by almost 7,5%. Additionally, the proportion of fronting with respect to the precise
108 One participle is used as adjunct. 109 Multiple references possible, see above. 110 As there are no overall data for other subordinate contexts, the calculation of percentages is not possible.
Chapter 3. Description and results 84 subordinate type is given. While the evolution for relative clauses decreases by 3,4%, the proportion of frontings in comparative clauses increases even slightly by 1,3% and therefore does not comply with the observed evolution.
Now, the realization of the subject in fronting contexts across the different clause types is compared, shown in table 22 as an overview.
1357-1360 1423-1433 RC CC Other RC CC Other RCI 52 (85,2%) 0 0 54 (74,0%) 0 0 non-overt subjects 4 (6,6%) 9 (33,3%) 28 (37,3%) 7 (9,6%) 9 (30%) 21 (38,2%) (pro-)nominal 5 (8,2%) 18 (66,6%) 47 (62,7%) 12 (16,4%) 21 (70%) 34 (61,8%)
Table 22. Proportion of the subject
In the majority of the cases the subject in relative clauses is represented by the RCI, i.e. qui. There are few overtly realized subjects for the first period (8,2%), but this proportion doubles to 16,4% for the second period. In comparative and other subordinate clauses, the situation is different. The proportion of non-overtly realized subjects ranges between 30% and 38,2%. While there is a decrease for comparative clauses by 3,3%, the proportion in other subordinate contexts remains almost the same. Hence, one can deduce that certain combinations of fronted elements and overt realized subjects are less frequent in some sentences than in others.
Table 23 represents the proportions of the position of the fronted element X and the subject S in relation to the finite verb V.
1357-1360 1423-1433 RC CC Other RC CC Other XV 56 (91,8%) 9 (33,3%) 28 (37,3%) 61 (83,6%) 9 (30%) 21 (38,1%) XSV 5 (8,2%) 14 (51,9%) 37 (49,3%) 8 (11%) 18 (60%) 25 (45,5%) SXV 0 2 (7,4%) 5 (6,7%) 4 (5,5%) 1 (3,3%) 2 (3,6%) other 0 2 (7,4%) 5 (6,7%) 0 2 (6,7%) 7 (12,7%)
Table 23. Position of the fronted element X and the subject S in relation to the finite verb V
In comparison to the other more detailed tables presented before, this table was simplified. Where possible, cases of multiple frontings were reduced to one of the basic configurations XV, XSV and SXV. Whenever multiple frontings could be assigned to both XSV and SXV as illustrated in (37), they were labelled as other.
Chapter 3. Description and results 85
(37) tant que d’une plaie que eux li firent en la teste par la mauvaisse garde du dit feu Robin combien que pour raison d’icelui cop ou plaie mort ou mehaing aucun ne s’en deust estre ensuy le dit feu Robin dedens trois sepmaines aprés le dit fait acoucha au lit assez tost aprés mort s’en est ensuie en la personne d’icellui so much that of a wound that they made to his head because of the bad conduct of the said defunct Robin as much as because of the stroke or the injury no death or permanent damage should result the said defunct Robin within three weeks after the said event lay down and shortly after he deceased (1359,177)
As mentioned before, the proportion of simple fronting XV can be deduced from the distribution of non-overtly realized subjects seen in the precedent table. For relative clauses, it is therefore not surprising that there are only few instances of combinations with overt subjects. With regard to fronting constructions with overt subjects, the configurations of the type XSV are predominant in all three clause types. In comparative and other subordinated contexts SXV or combined configurations represent about 10 to 15% of the contexts involving fronting. The situation is different for relative clauses, since we do not have any occurrence of SXV or combined configurations for the first period, and four of SXV for the second period. With respect to the latter, the fronted element corresponds in all four cases to an adjunct.
This leads to the distribution of the syntactic function of the fronted element (cf. table 24).
1357-1360 1423-1433 RC CC Other RC CC Other adjunct 37 (56,9%) 24 (75,8%) 62 (74,7%) 61 (82,4%) 33 (84,6%) 42 (67,7%) verb 8 (12,3%) 2 (6,1%) 3 (3,6%) 0 2 (5,1%) 0 negation 3 (4,6%) 0 4 (4,8%) 1 (1,4%) 1 (2,6%) 9 (14,5%) object 9 (13,8%) 4 (12,1%) 12 (14,5%) 8 (10,8%) 0 7 (11,3%) predicative 8 (12,3%) 2 (6,1%) 2 (2,4%) 4 (5,4%) 3 (7,7%) 4 (6,5%) expression
Table 24. Syntactic function of the fronted element
There is a quite clear evolution for one category: adjuncts represent the majority of fronting across all clause types and for both periods. While for relative clauses there is an important increase by 25,5%, the increase for comparative clauses is less important (+8,8%). In other subordinated contexts, on the contrary, there is a decline by 7%. However, adjuncts still
Chapter 3. Description and results 86 represent the majority of frontings. Fronted non-finite verb forms are most frequent in relative contexts of the first period. They disappear almost completely for the second period. The distribution of negation evolves for other subordinated contexts, where there are almost 10% more cases of fronted negation in the second period. In contrast, the fronting of objects decreases for all three contexts but unlike relative and other subordinate clauses, where the decline is rather small (about 3%), there are no instances of fronted object in comparative contexts for the second period. Since there are only few instances of fronted predicative expressions in comparative and other subordinated contexts, the rise from the first to the second period does not seem to be pertinent; however, in relative clauses, the number of fronted predicative expressions is reduced by half.
To sum up, as mentioned before, there are tendencies to treat comparative and relative clauses together as a subgroup of subordinate clauses since they behave similarly (Muller 1996 among others), and similarities seemed to be reflected in this data of the syntactic annotation of fronted elements in relative and comparative clauses, while other subordinate contexts behave differently. The results of the present summary depict a different picture. Relative and comparative clauses cannot be regrouped together in one single group, since there are too many divergences notably with regard to the evolution of the syntactic function displayed by the fronted element. In what follows, the separation of the three contexts established before is maintianed and similar and divergent behaviour are compared whenever possible.
3.2 Functional properties: Fronted elements
As mentioned in chapter 2, the codings of the functional properties are based on procedures suggested by Götze et al. (2007) and Steiner (2014). The fronted elements are differentiated according to their informational role. Recall that this distinction is not used to annotate the status of the mental representation of the referent. Here this study differs from both approaches which are mainly used to code discourse referents. Remember that some of the fronted elements are not discourse referents and that any approach purely based on referent characteristics cannot be used for the coding of fronted participles or adverbs. Instead, the focus lies on whether the information displayed by the fronted element is active, i.e. given or inactive, i.e. new. It is generally assumed that these are the two extremities of an informational continuum. The in- between is activated to some extent and commonly labelled as accessible (Chafe 1976; Prince 1981; Prévost 1998; Götze et al. 2007; Petrova and Solf 2009; Steiner 2014; among others). To exemplify the codings, the next section presents some cases where the decision tree on the IS
Chapter 3. Description and results 87 status of fronted elements introduced in chapter 2 reached its limits and explains the adjustments that were made in order to overcome them. Subsequently, the results for each of the three sentence types are summarized.
3.2.1 Coding: ambiguous cases and other difficulties
The main difficulty was to code occurrences as (38).
(38) pour doubte de mort et qu’il ne savoit aucun refuge ne où trouver sa seurté, mesmement que lesdites gens d’armes […] estoient coutumiers de proceder par voye de fait, sans obeir a justice, ne il ne trouvoit en nostre obeissance aucuns de ses amis qui pour doubte d’eulx le voulsist ne osast recueillir ou recepter because of fear of death and because he did not know any refuge nor where to find safety, above all because the said gendarmes […] were accustomed to proceed by act of violence, without obeying justice, nor did he find in our territory any of his friends who for fear of them wanted or dared to receive him (1425, 89)
The informational status of the whole fronted element is new since the fear of the friends is not mentioned elsewhere in the corresponding LDR. However, eulx is a pronoun and refers to a given entity, here lesdites gens d’armes et malveillans. In order to avoid confusion in the informational coding, another feature of the fronted element was therefore annotated in line with Prévost (1998): namely if the whole or a part of the element was identifiable by an anaphoric relation to an already mentioned referent. Hence pour doute d’eulx was coded as new and anaphoric.
However, the given labels did not cover all types of clauses as illustrated by the fronted CP given in (39).
(39) les lettres closes d'icelui de Percy, qui lors, come l'en dit, furent receues par la femme dudit viconte pour l'absence d'icelui son mary the sealed letters of this de Percy which by then, as one says, were received by the wife of the said viscount in the absence of her husband (1429, 197)
Chapter 3. Description and results 88
The CP as a whole refers to information that is already present in the antecedent context but the CP itself was never used word for word before in the LDR as illustrated by the previous discourse given in (40)
(40) Et environ le mois d'aoust derrain passé, un nomé Thomas de Precy, nostre ennemi et adversere, eust envoié par devers ledit Elliot le Bret, lieutenant d'icelui viconte, deux lettres closes, l’une adreçant audit viconte et l'autre audit lieutenant, dont celle d’icelui lieutenant contenoit come ledit de Precy lui prioit qu'il envoiast a sondit maistre les autres lettres closes qui a lui se adressoient et qu'il en eust response dedans le mardi ensuivant. Et iceles deux lettres closes ainsi receues par ledit lieutenant par la main de un notable homme du pais, nommé et appellé maistre Almaurry de la Liserne, eust icelui lieutenant envoié audit viconte les lettres closes d'icelui de Percy And around last August, a named Thomas de Precy, our enemy and adversary, had sent to the.said Elliot le Bret, lieutenant of this viscount, two sealed letters, the.one addressing to.the.said viscount and the.other to.the.said lieutenant, of which this of.this lieutenant contained that the.said de Precy asked him that he
should.send to his.said master, the other sealed letters which to.him REFL addressed and that.he of.it should.have the answer until the following Tuesday. And these two sealed letters received in that way by the said lieutenant by the hand of a honourable man of the region named and called Almaurry de la Liserne, this lieutenant had sent to the said viscount the sealed letters of this de Percy (1429,197)
Since the reference point of come l’en dit is the text itself, occurrences like the one in (39) are labelled as metalinguistic.
The following section is dedicated to the determination of the informational status of fronted non-discourse referents. As mentioned in chapter 2, Götze’s et al. (2007) decision tree was initially designed for the classification of discourse referents. This entails some difficulties for the annotation of non-finite verb forms and adverbs, too, as will be illustrated subsequently. For the examples given in (41) and (42), the decision is simple.
(41) en promectant retourner par devers eulx en ladicte prison […] ledit pere ne retourna point devers eulx, comme promis l'avoit
Chapter 3. Description and results 89
making the promise to return among them to the said prison […] the said father did not return to them, as promised it.had (1424, 63)
(42) nous a esté exposé que comme il et ses compaignons ordenez a faire l’arriere guet de nuit sur les murs de nostredite ville environ le mardi avant Noel darrain passé feussent alez en leur garde la ou il avoit pluseurs personnes entre les quels estoit feu Thiebaut Go[nn]ee si yvre que soustenir ne se povoit et oultrageux de paroles injurieuses et villaines dire a chascun estant lors sur les diz murs. Et pour ce li eust esté dit du dit arriere guet que pas n’estoit en estat de veillier veu l’estat de lui. Et escliçant et mal aler qu’il faisoit par dessus les diz murs pour la pluie qui cheue estoit le dit jour. (it) has been exposed to us that since his companions and he ordered to be on night watch on the walls of our said town around Tuesday before past Christmas (they) had gone during to their watch to a place where several persons were among whom was defunct Thiebaut Gonnee so drunken that
sustain NEG REFL could and (he was so) outrageous to say injurious and indecent words to everyone being then on the said walls. And because of that
(it) has been said to him by the said guard that (he) not NEG.was in the state to keep watch in view of his condition. And slippery and badly passable as it was
on the said walls because of the rain RCI fallen had the said day (1359, 121)
In (41), the fronted element is clearly given since the verb has been used before and the informational context corresponds to the first mention of promettre. On the contrary, in (42), the fronted element soustenir, pas and cheue are entirely new.
Here are two more examples (43) and (44):
(43) contenant que comme nagaires il eust esté requis et prié moult affectueusement de Jehan Le Hardi et sa femme que il vosist estre leur compere d’un enfant dont ladite femme estoit ençainte lequel suppliant meu de bonne volenté et par tres grant affeccion et de cherité leur accorda. Et aprés ce que ycelle femme fu delivree de son enfant et ycellui porté a l’eglise pour recevoir le sacrement de batesme, auquel lieu le dit suppliant estoit pour faire son devoir de tenir le dit enfant comme promis l’avoit containing that recently, he had been asked very affectionately by Jehan Le
Chapter 3. Description and results 90
Hardi and his wife to be the godfather of a child with whom the said wife was pregnant. This supplicant moved by good will and by very strong affection and by charity accorded. And after that this wife had given birth to the child and this one was taken to church to be baptised, at this place the said supplicant was in order to do his duty of holding the child as promised it.had (1360, 310)
(44) Et en parlant de leurs besoingnes et affaires, entrerent a parler comme ilz pourroient finer a Jehan de Hennot dit Colombie, qui avoit sur ledit suppliant un gaige ou obligacion montant à la somme de six livres tournois, a cause de ce qu'il avoit plegié Simon Marie de ladicte somme envers ledit Hennot, et si y avoit encores a cause de ce certains despens; de laquele somme et despens icelui suppliant avoit tousjours cuidié que ledit Simon le delivrast envers icelui Hennot, come tenu y estoit And when talking about their needs and business, (they) started to talk about how they could pay to Jehan de Hennot said Colombie, who had on the said supplicant a pawn or engagement coming to six livre tournois, because he had vouched for Simon Macié for the said sum towards the said Hennot and so there were still some expenses because of that; of this sum and expenses, this supplicant had always thought that the said Simon would deliver it towards this
Hennot, as obliged LOC was. (1433,225)
Neither promis nor tenu are given in the present contexts. However, in both cases in the precedent context, information is introduced that alludes to the following fronted elements. In (43), promis can, therefore, be interfered from the fact that the suppliant agreed to be the godparent. In (44), there is a kind of bridging relation between tenu and the mentioning of a previous accord on a guaranty. Hence, both fronted participles promis and tenu were coded as accessible.
It finally resulted during the annotation process that the present procedure in form of the decision tree introduced in chapter 2 did not capture all the informational characteristics that fronted elements, and, once again, especially non-finite verb forms bear. Here are, for instance, the following examples from (45) to (47).
(45) le dit Jouen vint a elle et la tempta derrechief comme elle se voulsist consentir a ce que il meist a mort le dit feu Colin son mari. A la quelle chose elle […] se
Chapter 3. Description and results 91
fust absentue a l’inducion du dit Jouen […] apres […] fust tres dolente et repentante de ce que elle s’estoit a ce consentue. Et pour ce, le plus tost que elle pout, parla audit Jouen […] en le requerant que a ce faire ne voulsist penser en aucune maniere et que consentir ne le pourroit. The said Jouen came to her and tempted her again that she would want to consent to him killing the said deceased Colin her husband. At that thing she […] consented to the instigation of the said Jouen […] and after […] (she) was very distressed and repentant about the fact that she had consented to that. And because of that, as soon as she could, (she) spoke to the said Jouen […] in requesting him that he should not think of doing in any way and that consent
(she) NEG could (1359, 231)
(46) que il ne cuidoient la dicte femme estre coupable en aucune maniere du dit fait ne que fait eust esté par son sceu ou consentement that they did not consider the said woman to be guilty in any way of the said crime nor that made had been to her knowledge or upon her consent (1359, 231)
(47) touz ceulx que il veoient adont chevauchier par le dit pais il cuidoient que il feussent de la compaignie des diz ennemis. Si advint que pluseurs des habitans de la ville de Gloz […] apperceurent deux personnes a cheval qui app(er)tement chevauchoient sur le dit pais […] lesquiex habitans cuidans iceulx pour la cause dessus dite estre de la compaignie des diz ennemis les suyvirent […] pour les prendre se ennemis estoient All those who they saw then on horseback in the said region, they believed that they were of the company of the said enemies. So (it) happened that several of the inhabitants of the town of Gloz […] perceived two persons on horseback who adroitly rode across the said country […] those inhabitants taking these (persons) for the above said reason to be part of the company of the said enemies followed them […] in order to take them if enemies were. (1359, 166)
The fronted elements in the three examples seem to be given at first sight. But a closer look to the respective situation reveals that the givenness is not absolute since the information borne by the respective antecedents does not correspond exactly to the one denoted by the respective fronted element, but only to some extent. Fait in (46) does not correspond to the preceding noun
Chapter 3. Description and results 92 but denotes rather an action, ennemis in (47) does not correspond to the before mentioned enemies but denotes the generic concept of enemy. Both can neither be derived nor inferred from the respective antecedents and therefore should be regarded as new. For consentir in (45), the situation is somehow different. The fronted element is the perfect repeat of the information denoted by forms of consentir in the previous discourse but ne assigns a negative value to the subordinate clause and hence reverses the whole reading. Examples of this kind will be resumed at the end of the following sections that summarize the results on information structure for the three different subordinate contexts.
To sum up the present section, four basic categories have been used to encode the pragmatic contribution of the fronted elements: accessible, given, new, and metalinguistic. Furthermore, it was distinguished between anaphoric and non-anaphoric fronted constituents or parts of fronted constituents. Now the results of the analyses on the IS status of fronted elements are presented in three sections according to the corresponding clause context in which they were found.
3.2.2 Results: relative clauses
For relative clauses here are the following results. The informational status of the majority of the fronted elements is new (69,8% for the first set of texts vs. 65,4% for the second). The proportion of accessible fronted elements represents 12,7% for the first and 17,9% for the second period. This increase is partly due to a decrease of given fronted elements: 15,9% versus 12,8%. There are only few cases of metalinguistic fronted elements in both periods (1 vs. 3).
The focus is on the distribution of anaphoric relation across the different informational status (cf. tables 25a and 25b). For the first period, there are 34 occurrences bearing an anaphoric relation and 31 without. Accessible and given fronted elements are both bearing anaphoric relation while for the new fronted elements only about one-third are also anaphoric.
accessible given metalinguistic new - anaphoric 0 0 1 30 + anaphoric 8 10 0 16 total 8 10 1 46
Table 25a. Frequency distribution of informational status vs. anaphoric relation 1357-1360
Chapter 3. Description and results 93
For the second period, 50 occurrences bear an anaphoric relation while 28 do not. The distribution across the informational status differs from the first period with regard to new fronted elements. 55,8% bear an anaphoric relation while 44,2% do not.
accessible given metalinguistic new - anaphoric 1 0 3 23 + anaphoric 12 10 0 29 Sum 13 10 3 52
Table 25b. Frequency distribution of informational status vs. anaphoric relation 1423-1433
The distribution of given and accessible fronted elements remains rather stable. One notes, however, that accessible occurrences can also not maintain any anaphoric relation. Refer to (48) for a closer look.
(48) […] en l’ostel d'un nommé Jehan Rousselaie, ouquel icelui Graindorge et pluseurs autres estoient alez […] Et aussi se leva ledit Grente et print icelui Graindorge a deux poings a la gorge, et convint que ceulx qui presens estoient […] in the house of a man named Jehan Rousselaie, to which this Graindorge and several others had gone […] and the said Grente stood up, too and took this Graindorge by both hands at the throat and (it) was necessary that those who present were […] (1431, 201)
The predicative expression presens is accessible in that the presence of the other people is given in the previous discourse ‘ouquel icelui Graindorge et pluseurs autres estoient alez’, but more than five sentences before the present sentence. However, there is no “anaphoric” relation since the adjective is not used in the previous discourse. Now the distribution of the informational status across the different fronting types is presented.
For the first period, there are only XSV and XV fronting. While all fronted elements in a XSV context are new, the distribution of XV context exhibits variation. In 68,3% of all XV cases, the informational status is new, in 13,3% it is accessible and in 16,7% given. For an overview, see table 26a.
accessible given metalinguistic new XSV 0 0 0 5 XV 8 10 1 41
Table 26a. Frequency distribution of informational status vs. fronting type 1357-1360
Chapter 3. Description and results 94
For the second period (cf. table 26b) all three fronting contexts are present. SXV is found in four occurrences and all of them are new. In XV contexts, the distribution is alike to the first period, the majority of frontings exhibits new informational status (60,3%), while accessible contexts represent 20,6%, and given 14,3%.
accessible given metalinguistic new SXV 0 0 0 4 XSV 0 1 0 10 XV 13 9 3 38
Table 26b. Frequency distribution of informational status vs. fronting type 1423-1433
For XSV contexts, all except one case (cf. (49)) bear new informational status.
(49) ou mois d'octobre derrain passé, ledit suppliant lors estant en la court de l’ostel de sa demourance audit lieu, où adont il s'occupoit a lever certain sien fumier at the month of last October, the said supplicant being then in the yard of the house of his home at the said place, where by then he was lifting some of his manure (1432, 204)
The fronted item adont is clearly given since the action has been situated twice before by ‘ou mois d’octobre derrain passé’ and lors.
3.2.3 Results: comparative clauses
As for relative clauses, the informational status of a majority of the fronted elements in comparative clauses is new: the proportion increases from 71,0% for the first to 78,0% for the second period. Accessible and given fronted elements decrease accordingly. While the proportion of accessible fronted elements represents 12,9% for the first and 7,3% for the second period, given fronted elements decrease less from 16,1% to 14,6%. In comparative clauses, there are no cases of metalinguistic fronted elements.
Now the distribution of anaphoric relation across the different informational status is analysed (cf. tables 27a and 27b). For the first period, there are 19 occurrences bearing an anaphoric relation and 12 without. All given occurrences are anaphoric at the same time, whereas half of the accessible occurrences do not bear an anaphoric relation.
Chapter 3. Description and results 95
accessible given new - anaphoric 2 0 10 + anaphoric 2 5 12 Sum 4 5 22
Table 27a. Proportion of informational status vs. anaphoric relation 1357-1360
The proportion of anaphoric relations within new fronted elements differs from the evolution observed for relative clauses. While the majority of new fronted elements bear an anaphoric relation for the first period (54,5%), for the second period there are only 37,5% of fronted elements left bearing an anaphoric relation. By comparing these results to the distribution in relative clauses, a diametrical trend for the different clause types is observed. For given and accessible fronted elements, the proportion of anaphoric relations remains approximately the same. While there is one given fronted element that does not bear an anaphoric relation, the rest does. Finally, there are only three cases of accessible fronted elements, of which one is without anaphoric relation.
accessible given new - anaphoric 1 1 20 + anaphoric 2 5 12 Sum 3 6 32
Table 27b. Proportion of informational status vs. anaphoric relation 1423-1433
With regard to the distribution of the informational status across the different fronting types, the first thing to notice is that all three types of fronting contexts are present across both periods (Consider table 28a and 28b).
accessible given new SXV 0 0 3 XSV 3 1 11 XV 1 4 4
Table 28a. Frequency distribution of informational status vs. fronting type 1357-1360111
For SXV, the distribution is unequivocal: all fronted elements are new. The situation is also clear for XSV contexts: new fronted elements represent the majority of the cases of both periods
111 Mixed types were not taken into account here, in this case, one occurrence being XVS and one being XXXSXV.
Chapter 3. Description and results 96 and even increase slightly (73,3% vs. 80%). In XV settings, the situation is somewhat different. While for the first period, new fronted elements represent less than half of the XV occurrences (44,4%), their proportion increases for the second period by 28,3%.
accessible given new SXV 0 0 1 XSV 2 3 20 XV 1 2 8
Table 28b. Frequency distribution of informational status vs. fronting type 1423-1433112
3.2.4 Results: other subordinate contexts
The occurrences of the group of other subordinated contexts differ from the two other contexts in that the general distribution of informational status seems to be clearer. Once again, the majority of the fronted elements exhibit a new informational status and show a clear evolution for the second period (66,3% vs. 80,6%). However, the group of accessible fronted elements is not of any importance: there are three occurrences for the first and no occurrence for the second period. Given elements decrease from 30,1% for the first to 19,4% for the second period. As well as for comparative clauses, there are no instances of metalinguistic fronted elements.
Here is the distribution of anaphoric relation across the different informational status in tables 29a and 29b.
accessible given new - anaphoric 0 2 33 + anaphoric 3 23 22 Sum 3 25 55
Table 29a. Frequency distribution of informational status vs. anaphoric relation 1357-1360
For the first period, all the accessible and given elements (except two) bear an anaphoric relation. The same is true for the second period. The majority of new fronted elements does not bear an anaphoric relation in both periods and their proportion remains almost stable (60% vs. 58%). Accordingly, new fronted elements bearing an anaphoric relation represent approximately 40% in both periods.
112 Mixed types were not taken into account here, namely one occurrence being XXVXS.
Chapter 3. Description and results 97
given new - anaphoric 0 29 + anaphoric 12 21 Sum 12 50
Table 29b. Frequency distribution of informational status vs. anaphoric relation 1423-1433
With respect to the distribution of the informational status across the different fronting types, as well as for comparative clauses, all three types of fronting contexts are present across both periods (Cf. table 30a and 30b).
accessible given new SXV 2 1 4 XSV 0 7 27 XV 1 2 8
Table 30a. Frequency distribution of informational status vs. fronting type 1357-1360113
However, here, the distribution is less unequivocal for SXV contexts. For the first period, all three different informational statuses are present: two accessible, one given and four new fronted elements. For the second period, both SXV occurrences bear a new informational status. In XSV contexts about 20% of the occurrences include given fronted elements in both periods. Hence, new fronted elements represent the clear majority in XSV settings. The same can be observed for the type of XV fronting: for both periods, new fronted elements constitute the majority (72,7% vs. 76,1%).
given new SXV 0 2 XSV 6 20 XV 5 16
Table 30b. Frequency distribution of informational status vs. fronting type 1423-1433114
113 Mixed types were not taken into account here, namely one occurrence per following type: XSVS, XSXV, XVS, XVSV, and XXSXV. 114 Mixed types were not taken into account here, in this case, one occurrence being XSXXV, one being XVS, another XXVS and one XXVXS.
Chapter 3. Description and results 98
3.2.5 Revising the results: degree of reliance
As illustrated in section 3.2.1, Götze’s et al. (2007) decision tree reached its limits by not capturing all the informational characteristics that fronted items (especially fronted verbs) display. In some cases, adjustments could be made, in the case of (45) retaken here as (50), no concluding procedure could be established.
(50) le dit Jouen vint a elle et la tempta derrechief comme elle se voulsist consentir a ce que il meist a mort le dit feu Colin son mari. A la quelle chose elle […] se fust absentue a l’inducion du dit Jouen […] apres […] fust tres dolente et repentante de ce que elle s’estoit a ce consentue. Et pour ce, le plus tost que elle pout, parla audit Jouen […] en le requerant que a ce faire ne voulsist penser en aucune maniere et que consentir ne le pourroit. The said Jouen came to her and tempted her again that she would want to consent to him killing the said deceased Colin her husband. At that thing she […] consented to the instigation of the said Jouen […] and after […] (she) was very distressed and repentant about the fact that she had consented to that. And because of that, as soon as she could, (she) spoke to the said Jouen […] in requesting him that he should not think of doing in any way and that consent (she) NEG could (1359, 231)
Recall that consentir is the perfect repeat of the information denoted by forms of consentir in the previous discourse but that the whole subordinate is negated and hence an opposite or contrastive reading. In the first round of coding, contrast was tested as additional category. However, there were not any occurrences that bore a straighter contrastive reading than (50). Yet, as can be seen in the following, the mere limitation to the values of new, accessible and given does not depict the complexity some occurrences display. Take, for instance, the example in (51).
(51) La pluie qui cheue estoit le dit jour the rain that fallen had the said day (1359, 121)
Cheue was coded as being new since the preceding discourse of (51), given in (52) does not mention the weather conditions.
Chapter 3. Description and results 99
(52) […] nous a esté exposé que comme il et ses compaignons ordenez a faire l’arriere guet de nuit sur les murs de nostredite ville environ le mardi avant Noel darrain passé feussent alez en leur garde la ou il avoit pluseurs personnes entre les quels estoit feu Thiebaut Go[nn]ee si yvre que soustenir ne se povoit et oultrageux de paroles injurieuses et villaines dire a chascun estant lors sur les diz murs. Et pour ce li eust esté dit du dit arriere guet que pas n’estoit en estat de veillier veu l’estat de lui. Et escliçant et mal aler qu’il faisoit par dessus les diz murs pour la pluie qui cheue estoit le dit jour (it) has been reported to us that as he and his companions ordered to be on night watch on the walls of our said town around Tuesday before past Christmas had gone to their watch where there were several persons among whom was defunct Thiebault Go[nn]ee so drunken that to carry himself straight (he) could not and (he was so) outrageous of injurious and vile words to say to everybody being then on the said walls. And for that (it) had been said to him by the watchman that (he) not was able to keep watch in view of his condition. And slippery and badly passable as it was on the said walls because of the rain RP fallen had the said day (1359,121)
One might argue that cheue ‘fallen’ is given or at least accessible with respect to the fact that there are few other verbs that can be used in a subject relative clause qualifying pluie ‘rain’ any further. In other terms, the combination of cheue and pluie is familiar and to some extent expected, hence the semantic content of cheue could be argued to be slight. To sum up, one could cast doubts on the procedure used to code for the different information values. Furthermore, it appears that the semantic content of some fronted items is light and hence the question is whether an information-structural coding of these items is possible at all. In this regard, refer to the following example in (53).
(53) contenant comme en l’annee derrenier. passee feu Robin Garin de fait et senz aucune raisonnable eust batue et villenee tres excessivement et villainement la femme du dit Bachelier en l’absence d’iceli et aprés se feust venue sa dite famme a li et li eust monstré comme le dit Robin l’avoit villainement batue et sanz aucune cause raisonnable en li priant que il gardast son honneur. Et sur ce courrocié du dit fait eust parlé a deux hommes de son amitié en leur monstrant la villenie que faite li estoit en la personne de sa femme ainsi batue et villenee
Chapter 3. Description and results 100
containing that in the last passed year defunct Robin Garin of feat and without any reasonable had beaten and mistreated very excessively and vilely the wife of the said Bachelier in the absence of him and thereafter had come his said wife to him and had shown to him how the said Robin had vilely beaten her and without any reasonable cause (by) asking him that he should preserve her honour. And thereupon enraged about the said act (he) had spoken to two men
of his amity them showing the vileness RCI made him was in the person of his wife so beaten and mistreated (1359,177)
The fronted participle faite was coded as new since no form of the verb faire was used in the previous discourse. However, the verb faire is semantically light and refers to an action that must be situated before and hence be given to some extent. In (53) above faite is used to define the term villenie, which is part of a semantic field that had been established before in the LDR by the following feu Robin Garin de fait et senz aucune raisonnable eust batue et villenee tres excessivement et villainement la femme du dit Bachelier. Hence, the label anaphoric was used to account for the apparently inconsistent information-structural value of faite. However, the question remains if these two features suffice to determine the pragmatic impact of the fronted item. Compare (53) to (54) below.
(54) ledit Guillaume Garnier pere eust esté prins prisonnier […] ledit Guillaume eust requis a nosdis ennemis qu'ils lui voulsissent donner congié d'aler fere sa finance […] en promectant retourner par devers eulx en ladicte prison […] ledit pere ne retourna point devers eulx, comme promis l'avoit, the said Guillaume Garnier father had been taken prisoner […] the said Guillaume had requested of our said enemies that they him would give permission to go make his financing […] making the promise to return among them to the said prison […] the said father did not return to them, as promised it.had (1424, 63)
Here the fronted participle promis is clearly given since the corresponding gérondif form en promectant, which is used within the same discourse context, i.e. the promise to come back. Hence promis was likewise labelled as being anaphoric. But the informational value of promis is beyond the mere notion of givenness. Indeed, we find similar structures in other languages, as for instance (55) in English.
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(55) He wanted to win, and WIN he did.
The common grounds of the fronting of win and promis are obvious. Both are instance of Verum Focus in the sense of Höhle (1992) and emphasize the expression of truth of the respective proposition.115 One might wonder whether a similar analysis is possible for faite in example (53) above. However, within the scope of the present chapter, the interpretive limits of the information-structural codings on givenness and anaphoricity are realized and the discussion of a more detailed approach on information structure is postponed to the analysis chapter, i.e. section 4.2.
3.3 Summary and statistical analyses
The present chapter mainly concentrates on the analysis of the distribution of the different values for which these data are annotated. For each of these values its distribution across the different variables and the evolution of the frequency of these variables with respect to the two different parts of this corpus are evaluated. As mentioned in chapter 2, this field of statistics is purely descriptive. Hence, in order to test hypotheses and to derive an underlying distribution of the data, inferential statistical methods were made use ofby running tests with the software environment R116. As illustrated in the methodology part in chapter 2, these data sets consisted of nominal – i.e. the differentiation between items is based only on their names, e.g. for the verb type we distinguished between être, modal and lexical verbs – and binary variables, i.e. either there was a fronted item (coded as 1) or not (0). This leaves only little space for testing of different dependency models, as, for instance, a simple chi-squared test is not possible for data sets containing only nominal data. Therefore, the option used was a logistic regression analysis. The whole group of coded occurrences was tested, but also separate tests for the different sentence types were run, and the two different periods were combined as well. Subsequently, the different models were compared by using an ANOVA for a chi-squared distribution. Unfortunately, none of the models showed a statistical significance, even not to a minor degree. One might conjecture that these results are linked to the interpretive limits of the information- structural codings on givenness and anaphoricity found above.
115 For a more detailed discussion of Verum Focus compare chapter 4. 116 Cf. https://www.r-project.org/, last access 11th March 2016, 9:54.
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4. Analysis
4.1 Previous research
In the following, the results are presented of previous research on the main areas of investigation of the present work, i.e. (stylistic) fronting in embedded clauses. The key issue is mainly Medieval French, but work on other stages of French or other (Romance) languages is, however, taken into consideration where the results seem applicable to this data. Recall that the subject of the present study is the left edge of embedded clauses with a focus on “Stylistic Fronting”. Therefore, the present subchapter is composed of a first section on embedded clauses and a second on stylistic fronting. Both are organized in a parallel manner. First, approaches to information structure are presented and discussed. Second, the syntactic issues relevant to both dimensions are introduced and articulated.
4.1.1 On embedded clauses
4.1.1.1 Information-structural approaches
Research that explicitly deals with the information structure in Medieval French exclusively focuses on main clauses (Bech and Eide 2014; Steiner 2014, among others). The same seems to hold for research on Old Romance in general (e.g. Bech and Eide (eds.) 2014; Ferraresi and Lühr (eds.) 2010). However, for other languages there are a few diachronic studies with a consistent approach on information structure in embedded contexts. But these studies prioritise the diachronic data and deal only tangentially with theoretical, information-structural concepts on embedded clauses. For instance, Schlachter’s (2009) investigation of word order and information structure in Old High German Isidor is based for the information-structural part on the notions developed by Krifka (2008). While addressing problematic issues of a simple discrimination between given, accessible, and new elements, she leaves open the question of possible interferences with the subordinate context. Her investigation resorts to the detailed analysis of every single occurrence without providing a generalizable procedure. Other authors as Hinterhölzl (2009) take up prosodic structure in diachronic data in order to infer hints on information structure. However, these approaches cannot serve the purposes that have been clearly illustrated in chapter 2, since this data does not allow a conclusion to be drawn regarding prosodic information. Therefore, for the present survey, studies relying on prosody are discarded.
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With respect to theoretical approaches, two articles concentrating on the information structure of embedded clause were found (Komagata 2003; Matić, van Gijn and Van Valin 2014), which are discussed in detail in the following. Komagata (2003) bases his work on observations made for English and German. Grounded upon a traditional view of information structure as a non- recursive partition of information within a (complex) utterance between a theme- and a rheme- part, Komagata concludes that “I[nformation-]S[tructural] partitions do not occur within subordinate clauses” (2003: 316). Instead, if one discerns a division between theme and rheme, this is said to be due to the “subordinate-like” clause acting as an independent utterance. His observations on subordinate-like clauses in German and English correspond to these types of complement clauses for which Main Clause Phenomena have been attested (Edmonds 1970, Hooper and Thompson 1973, Green 1976; for recent research, Heycock 2006, Aelbrecht et al. (eds.) 2012, Haegeman 2012). Recall that this is an investigation into primarily relative and comparative clauses, for which, to the present, in (Medieval) French, Main Clause Phenomena have not been attested.
Matić, van Gijn and Van Valin (2014), on the other hand, focus on complex sentences, where they study “information management” (2014: 1) internally within the proper sentence, and externally i.e. in the larger discourse context. Apart from information structure, here understood as common ground management in the sense of Krifka (2008), they do also take into account reference tracking, i.e. “the capability of the interlocutors to unequivocally determine the referent(s) of a linguistic expression” (Matić, van Gijn and Van Valin 2014: 2), which is of minor interest to the present study. Subsequently, we concentrate here on their approach on information structure. In a first step, they distinguish structurally different subtypes that can form a part of complex sentences. After distinguishing subordination from coordination as always involving a dependency of the linked unit on the linking unit, Matić, van Gijn and Van Valin (2014) delimit two types of subordination: daughter vs. ad-subordination (1), based on Matić, van Gijn and Van Valin (2014: 5).
(1) a. daughter subordination Jean sait que Marine a volé l’argent Jean knows that Marine has stolen the money b. ad-subordination Marine s’est retrouvée face à Jean après que la police était arrivée Marine was confronted by Jean after the police had arrived
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As one can see, in (1a), the embedded clause represents the argument of the main clause verb savoir, while in (1b) the subordinate functions as an adjunct modifier of the main clause. The same holds for cases of NP-internal subordination as seen in (2), based on Matić, van Gijn and Van Valin (2014: 6).
(2) a. daughter subordination Jean croit la rumeur selon laquelle Marine a volé l’argent Jean believes the rumour that Marine stole the money b. ad-subordination Jean croit la rumeur sur Marine, que Marie lui a racontée Jean believes the rumour about Marine which Marie told him
For NP-internal relative subordination, the explanation above holds as well: in (2a), the embedded clause is a complement of the NP whereas in (2b), the embedded clause corresponds to an adjunct on the NP. With regard to the whole complex sentence, Matić, van Gijn and Van Valin (2014) consider all relative clause types to be instances of ad-subordination. Thus, this classification doesn’t help any further in identifying the nature of the clause in cases where an exact classification of restrictive or non-restrictive relative clauses is unclear.117 Hence, a further distinction between daughter and ad-subordination was not made in the codings here presented and, in the following, characteristics of daughter-subordination are only briefly addressed.
With respect to the information structure of complex sentences, Matić, van Gijn and Van Valin (2014) differentiate, furthermore, between an external and an internal perspective on complex sentences.118 According to the former perspective, subordinate clauses are treated within a complex sentence as a whole constituent. The internal perspective considers aspects of the internal information structure of subordinate clauses. Consequently, only their typology of the latter was taken into consideration in detail. Nevertheless, some effects of the external information structure need to be mentioned. With regard to ad-subordination, Matić, van Gijn and Van Valin (2014) observe that these clauses can display the same range of information- structural values such as topic, focus, and contrast as non-clausal constituents. As for daughter subordination, all information-structural functions are available, too. The external focusability,
117 Cf. chapter 2.2 on methodology and coding. 118 Consider also the section on the methodology of the pragmatic annotation in chapter 2.
Chapter 4. Analysis 105 however, seems to be constrained crosslinguistically in different ways (e.g. by the selecting verb). This difference is due to the fact that daughter-subordinate clauses form a complex proposition with the main clause which results in having a decisive impact on the internal information structure of daughter-subordinate clauses.119 With respect to relative clauses, Matić, van Gijn and Van Valin (2014) consider them to be freely focusable, similar to simple NP modifiers, and usually resulting in a contrastive interpretation.
Matić, van Gijn and Van Valin (2014) meet the above-mentioned objections towards the impossibility or futility of information-structural subdivisions with two arguments: on the one hand, the possibility of an information reversal localizing the main assertive point in the dependent clause and, on the other hand, the existence of languages where information- structural marking can be grammatically encoded within subordinate clauses, as, for instance, in Mandarin, Karitiana (Artikem, Tupian; Brazil) and Tundra Yukaghir (Yukaghir; Russia). Hence, according to Matić, van Gijn and Van Valin (2014), the lack of information-structural markers in embedded clauses can either be due to language-specific absolute restrictions or only be the effect of a grammatical underspecification.
With regard to the internal information structure in ad-subordination, Matić, van Gijn and Van Valin (2014) note that these clause types generally bear a virtual presupposition. Consequently, it is less likely that their internal information structure is expressed. According to Matić, van Gijn and Van Valin (2014), the typical discourse function of restrictive relative clauses is identificational, i.e. to provide enough descriptive information for a referent to be uniquely identifiable. Hence, an internal informational partition is even less likely, as restrictive relative clauses must contain material which is assumed to be already part of the common ground. As a consequence, assertions cannot be meaningfully encoded: if a restrictive relative clause comprises a potentially controversial element (contrastive topic or focus), it cannot fulfil its primary function to help identify the referent of the head noun. However, Matić, van Gijn and Van Valin (2014) observe that in many languages these expectations are not met and refer, for instance, to the context of island violations in Danish (3) or Japanese (4), which are possible only under informational reversal. The examples are taken from Matić, van Gijn and Van Valin (2014: 18).
119 I. e. only if a subordinate clause is externally focusable, it can have an articulated internal information structure.
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(3) det hus kender jeg en mand [som har købt]
that house know I a man RCI have bought ‘I know a man who has bought that house.’
(4) Mary wa [dare ga korosita] araiguma o mituketa no?
Mary TOP who NOM killed raccoon ACC found FP ‘Mary found raccoons that who killed?’
As can be seen in (3) and (4), the typical context for these violations are restrictive relative clauses with general and indefinite heads embedded in sentences with general or easily retrievable matrix clauses. Hence, topicalization (3) or questioning (4) becomes possible. According to their observations, Matić, van Gijn and Van Valin (2014) suggest that if specific linguistic devices are available in the language there are no inherent limits to the internal information structure in restrictive relative clauses. Furthermore, they question the idea of relevance of the main assertion point for the internal IS in some languages such as Karitiana, where the head of the internally headed RC regularly carries the same marking as focused constituents in root clauses.
To sum the essential results of Matić, van Gijn and Van Valin (2014) there are two key points which need to be kept in mind. First, the information-structural properties of subordinate sentences are characterized by their dual nature as information units in themselves, and as elements of the complex sentence as a whole. Second, the results on the internal information structure are of particular interest: the information structure of subordinates is open to variation. According to Matić, van Gijn and Van Valin (2014), it appears that only those subordinate clauses that represent the main assertive point can be informationally articulated. This is of a certain importance: recall that ad-subordinated clauses – and therefore all types of relative clauses – are generally assumed to bear a (virtual) presupposition. However, as could be seen before, in some languages, this informational limitation can be suspended through grammatical means in certain grammatical environments. Hence, since there is a broad range of linguistic realization of pragmatic means, from full underspecification via partial grammatical specification to full grammatical specification, one should not conclude that the absence of grammatical markers necessarily means that an informational reversal in ad-subordinate clauses is not possible but rather take it as an empirical question that may be partially answered with reference to speaker judgments in order to delimit the possibilities of a given language. Furthermore, in cases where speaker judgments are not possible, i.e. above in diachronic
Chapter 4. Analysis 107 linguistics, the possibility of an informational reversal should be kept in mind and taken into account where necessary. Finally, the approach of Schlachter (2009) – a detailed analysis of every single occurrence based on the notional framework of Krifka (2008) – seems to be the only appropriate one. Hence, a proper analysis of the data will be complemented by a detailed investigation into the core information-structural properties of the fronted element in Medieval French subordinates.
4.1.1.2 Embedded left-periphery in Latin and Old Romance
At least since Rizzi’s (1997) seminal paper on the fine structure of CP, the idea of an articulated left periphery became a prominent feature of generative research. The CP, as the part of the derivation where discourse information is captured, is therefore split up in different projections. Research on the fine-grained structure of the CP reveals a huge number of possible projections into which the CP layer is split up. This is discussed by Benincà (2001, 2006), Benincà and Poletto (2004), Benincà and Munaro (eds.) (2010), Brugé et al. (eds.) (2012), Poletto (2000), Rizzi (2001, 2004a), Rizzi (ed.) (2004), Shlonsky (ed.) 2015 and Svenonius (ed.) (2014), among others. For the purposes here, it suffice to say that the following split CP in (5) based on Ledgeway’s (2012) work on Old Romance was adopted and modified as can be seen hereafter.
(5) [ForceP {Topic [FrameP* [ThemeP* {Focus [ContrastFocP* [NInformFocP [VerumFocP [FinP [TP ]]]]]}]]}]
Ledgeway’s (2012) extensive work on the morphology typology and change from Latin to Romance was taken as a basis for the present study, since, to the best of one’sknowledge, it provides the most comprehensive approach on the left periphery of Old Romance languages.
Ledgeway (2012) does not address the question to which extent the split-CP in (5) can be adopted for embedded contexts. Before discussing this question, here is first and foremost a detailed description of what the structure in (5) stands for. Curly braces represent a field, i.e. the Topic- and the Focus-field, which are split up into other projections and subfields. With respect to the former, in Romance languages, there are an abundance of multiple topics. See for instance (6), adopted from Donaldson (2008: 26)120.
120 (6a) is slightly modified with respect to the position of en ce moment postponed to the finite verb in his example. (6b) is taken from Ledgeway (2012: 166) it is his (124a.)
Chapter 4. Analysis 108
(6) a.Nous, en ce moment, ça va très bien We at the moment it.expl goes very well ‘At the moment, we are fine’ b.Henri, au ciné, il y va plus
Henri to the cinema he LOC goes anymore ‘To the cinema, Henri doesn’t go anymore’
Previous research (Benincà and Poletto 2004, Benincà 2006) has suggested the existence of subfields with the Topic-field. That is what the asterisks in (5) stand for. Accordingly, the FrameP defines the spatio-temporal context of the sentence. As (6a) illustrates, FrameP can be divided in a Hanging Topic and scene setters. Nous is a Hanging Topic and corresponds to what the following sentence is about without bearing the same case as its obligatory coreferential pronominal element in the “core part” of the sentence, ça. As Zimmermann (2015) illustrates, ça is not entirely impersonal and can resume nous to a certain extent although not completely. The hanging topic can, by its very nature, occur only once in a sentence and needs to be a DP, while the number of scene-setting adverbials such as en ce moment is in general unlimited121: (6a) would still be perfectly fine, if à la plage, sous le parasol, avec une bière dans la main ‘at the beach, under the sunshade, with a beer in hand’ is introduced after en ce moment. Turning to the Theme subfield, one might at first glance think that Henri and au ciné in (6b) have the same pragmatic status and syntactic function as the Hanging Topic Nous, respectively the scene-setting adverbial en ce moment in the previous example. This is not the case, since Henri and il are coreferential and do bear the same case as well as au ciné and y, il and y serving as resumptive clitic pronouns. (6b) constitutes therefore two cases of clitic left dislocation. As scene-setting adverbials, Theme topics can be subject to recursion. Here is (7) for the respective structures of (6).
(7) a. [FrameP1 Nousi [FrameP2 en ce moment [TP çai va très bien]]]
b. [ThemeP1 Henrii [ThemeP2 au cinéj [TP ili yj va plus]]]
121 This is according to Benincà and Poletto (2004: 53). In ‘general unlimited’ here refers to the idea that in accordance with the finite set of distinct functional projections of which each can be labelled on the basis of the type of element it can host, all of these FP can be filled.
Chapter 4. Analysis 109
The next item is the Focus field. In general, it is assumed that Modern French does not license a left peripheral focus position (Lambrecht 1996). In order to have a focus reading, Modern French makes use of a cleft construction (8).
(8) *LA POMME j’ai mangée / C’est LA POMME que j’ai mangée The apple I.have eaten / It.is the apple that I.have eaten ‘It’s the apple that I ate’
However, as Blanche-Benveniste (1996) shows, focalization in Spoken French is also marked by a different intonation. She distinguishes that examples as in (9), taken from Blanche- Benveniste (1996: 114), differ from examples as in (10), taken from Frei (1979: 301), with respect to intonation.
(9) Rien que des pâtes ils mangent là-bas
nothing COMP pasta they eat over there ‘They eat nothing but pasta over there.’
(10) Le travail, j’aime The work, I.like
Frei (1979: 301) takes fronting as in (10) to form a class of homogenous substitutions with examples as in (11).
(11) Le travail, je l’aime. The work, I it.like
Therefore Fronting of generics without clitic copy, such as (10) are not an example of focus fronting but rather an instance of left dislocation. With respect to the examples in (9), to my knowledge, these are not taken into account by the cartographic approach for research on Modern French.
For Old French, the Focus field seems to have been productive (Rickard 1962, Skårup 1975, Steiner 2014, among others). To illustrate the different types of foci, examples taken from Old French are being used. Ledgeway (2012: 163) gives the following example in (12) for a contrastive focus in Old French (his 117a). And in (15), Steiner (2014: 171) provides an example of (multiple) new information focus (her 4a).
Chapter 4. Analysis 110
(12) AUTRE CHOSE ne pot li roi trouver
other thing NEG could the king find.INF ‘The king could not find anything else.’ (Mort le Roi Artu, 79.24)
(13) MOUT y ot DE PRINCES a lui HAUBERGIER Much there has of princes to him to.dress-in-chainmail ‘There were many princes to dress him in chainmail.’ (Cassidorus, §59)
Since, as Ledgeway (2012) notes, there is always only focus realized in a left peripheral position, one might argue that there is only one FocP within CP. However, Ledgeway (2012) points out two reasons that suggest two distinct positions. On the one hand, he argues that in varieties that display both types of foci, only contrastive but not new information focus is compatible with embedded contexts. On the other hand, according to him, in the same varieties, the strict adjacency between finite verb and the focused constituent is only required in cases of new informational focus. Hence he concludes that the contrastive focus phrase is located to the left of the new informational focus phrase. In addition, Ledgeway (2012) assumes a further split of the contrastive and the new informational left peripheral focus into further subfields. He justifies this assumption by the different behaviour with respect to embedding contexts in some Romance varieties. With respect to non-bridge verbs, as we see in (14), circumstantial and quantificational adverbs, unlike other adverbials and objects, can be fronted under contrastive focus (Ledgeway 2012: 164).
(14) a. al s cruzie c DA TRAI l a-al odù he self= worries that sometimes him= has=he see ‘He is worried because he saw him sometimes.’
b. * al s cruzie c D SIGY mang-ela a ciasa he self= worries that for sure eats=she at home ‘He is worried because she is going to eat at home for sure.’
c. * al s cruzie c L GIAT a-al odù he self= worries that the cat has=he see ‘He is worried that it was the cat he has seen.’
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The same holds for indefinite quantifiers fronted in the absence of a contrastive reading and, hence, are to be considered as bearing new information focus, according to Ledgeway (2012). They can even be fronted in embedded contexts, cf. (15) (Ledgeway 2012: 165).
(15) Creo que ALGO podrá hacer
believe.1SG that something will.be.able.3SG do ‘I think that he will be able to do something.’
Leonetti and Escandell-Vidal (2009) base their approach on very similar examples as (15) but accredit them with a completely different reading, i.e. not a new information focus. Compare the example given in (16), i.e. Leonetti and Escandell-Vidal’s (2009: 156) (3b).
(16) Algo debe saber
something must.3SG know ‘She/he must know something.’
According to Leonetti and Escandell-Vidal (2009), these frontings exhibit a syntactic pattern almost equivalent to focalisation, but with different phonological and semantic properties.122 Furthermore, they consider the construction to also allow fronting of lexical DPs and of non- lexical, anaphoric, pronominal DPs like lo mismo, ‘the same’, characterized by an anaphoric dependence. In addition, they note that under the light of minimal pairs as in (17), taken from Leonetti and Escandell-Vidal (2009: 168), it is indicated that fronting is optional with respect to (un-) grammaticality but that there are remarkable interpretive effects: in considering the version with fronting speakers’ agreement is in some sense ‘stronger’, ‘more marked’ and ‘emphatic’ with respect to the alternative version with canonical order.
(17) Por algo será. / Será por algo.
for something will.be.3SG will.be.3SG for something ‘There must be some reason for it.’
122 According to them, this type of frontings represents operator-variable structures (no resumptive clitics, sensitivity to islands, weak-crossover effects); displays subject-verb inversion and cannot be considered as cases of focus movement, since in Modern Spanish, it is impossible to place the new information focus of a sentence in the left periphery, counterexamples bearing a intonational contour typical of contrastive focus – a reading that is not possible for the examples in (15) and (16), cf. Leonetti and Escandell-Vidal (2009: 163-4 and footnote 7).
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Hence Leonetti and Escandell-Vidal (2009) claim that what is perceived as ‘emphasis’ is the result of focus on sentence polarity – an interpretation that is forced by the syntactic mechanisms excluding every possible informational partition. With regard to minimal pairs as in (17), one can observe that the distribution of the variant implying fronting is more constrained. Leonetti and Escandell-Vidal (2009: 168-169) illustrate that by referring among others to the minimal pair given in (18).
(18) {Alguna cosa/algún ruido} debiste oír. /
{something/ some noise} must.2SG hear Debiste oír {alguna cosa/algún ruido}.
must.2SG hear {something/some noise} ‘You must have heard {something/some noise}.’
Both variants are equally acceptable according to Leonetti and Escandell-Vidal (2009), if they are inserted in a dialogue like (19)123
(19) A: – Yo no oí nada. ‘– I didn’t hear anything.’ B: – Pues tú estabas allí. {Alguna cosa debiste oír. / Debiste oír alguna cosa.}
‘– Well you were there. {You MUST have heard something / You must have heard something.}’
In contrast, Leonetti and Escandell-Vidal (2009: 169) provide another exemplary dialogue, retaken here as (20), where they assume that only the sentence with the canonical word order sounds natural.
(20) A: – No sé por qué, pero hoy me he despertado a las cinco de la mañana… ‘– I don’t know why but I woke up at five o’clock this morning…’ B: – {Debiste oír algún ruido. / #Algún ruido debiste oír.}
‘– You must have heard some noise. / #You MUST have heard some noise.’
Hence, they conclude that the constrained distribution of the fronting construction has to be related to the way in which fronting drives the interpretation and the connection to the previous
123 Taken from Leonetti and Escandell-Vidal (2009: 169). Capitalization changed by the author.
Chapter 4. Analysis 113 discourse, where some antecedent of the whole proposition must be established. This is the case in (19) but not in (20), where the context of hearing is not introduced previously.
Leonetti and Escandell-Vidal (2009) decide to label the phenomenon as ‘verum focus’ in the sense of Höhle (1992), Féry (2007), Romero and Han (2004) and Romero (2006) by combining the idea of a narrow focus on sentence polarity with an independent VERUM operator. This implies that the proposition itself is considered as background; i.e. known or given to some extent. This approach corresponds to what Danckaert (2015) understands by presuppositional polarity, hence requiring a “hearer-old”124 antecedent. However, he distinguishes two types of sentence polarity: focal polarity and presuppositional polarity. In order to illustrate this difference, he contrasts Spanish bien ‘well’ to its emphatic but non-presuppositional counterpart sí ’yes’. While sí can reverse the truth value of a previously uttered negative utterance, it cannot contradict inference of an implicit negative statement, cf. (21) and (22), taken from Danckaert’s (2015: 11).
(21) A: La soprano no ha cantado. ‘The soprano didn’t sing.’ B: Sí ha cantado la soprano.
(But) the soprano DID sing.’
(22) A: Pepito detesta la cocina italiana. ‘Pepito hates Italian cooking.’ B: ¡(Pues) bien come pasta (Pepito)! / # Sí come pasta Pepito.
‘But Pepito indeed eats pasta’. (approx.) / ‘(But) Pepito DOES eat pasta.’
As (21) and (22) illustrate, the types of verum focus fronting of Leonetti and Escandell-Vidal correspond to the sentences with sí. In (22), it is clearly the lack of an antecedent that renders odd the use of sí. These observations support the idea that the fronting type being dealt with here cannot be subsumed under a contrastive focus reading. Another label for the same phenomenon seems to be what Benincà and Poletto (2004) understand by the term ‘anaphoric anteposition focus’, given the following example in (23) in Old French taken from Labelle (2013: 11):125
124 Or as he puts it: “i.e., be part of the common ground, but not mentioned explicitly in the preceding stretch of discourse”, cf. Danckaert (2015: 9). 125 Word in bold print by the author.
Chapter 4. Analysis 114
(23) car par le conseil Joseph avoit il recovree sa terre que since through the advice Joseph had he recovered his land that Tholomers li toloit, et tolue li eust il se … Tholomers him took and taken him had he if ‘since through Joseph’s advice, he had recovered his land that Tholomers was taking from him, and he would have taken it if… (1225-QUESTE, 113.2974)
How can then the order of the different projections within the focus field be established? Ledgeway (2012: 166) proposes an ordering as in (24).
(24) [ContrastFocP1 Obj/Adv[ContrastFocP2 Advcircum./quantif.[NInformFocP1 IFoc[NInformFocP2 IndefQ []]]]]
As can be seen, the respective lower position hosts the elements (circumstantial and quantificational or indefinite quantifiers) whose use is not restricted to main contexts. This ordering may surprise some, however, Ledgeway (2012) does not discuss it any further and argues that the higher positions are “pruned in embedded contexts” (165). Leonetti and
Escandell-Vidal (2009) leave open the question of the target position of VERUM focus. Leonetti (2010) tends towards an analysis within TP but does not commit himself to the issue, either. Danckaert’s (2015) article does not address the question, neither, but in his dissertation (2012) he assumes a Polarity phrase that can be identified with sentence polarity and suggests that it is located between the Topic and the Focus field. Benincà and Poletto (2004) assume anaphoric anteposition foci to be a variant of new information foci and, hence, situated them in the same projection below the contrastive focus projections. By taking all these observations into account, as an intermediate conclusion, this thesis follows Ledgeway (2012) and Benincà and Poletto (2004) and supposes that verum foci are hosted by a verum focus projection situated below the new information focus projection.
To conclude the discussion of the split CP assumed in (5), the focus finally turns to ForceP and FinP. These projections are assumed to host infinite and finite complementizers respectively. According to Rizzi (1997), Force corresponds to the illocutionary force of the sentence, while Fin specifies the modality and/or finiteness of the clause, hence the potential host for the finite verb in V2 cases (cf. Haegeman 1996, among others). A further argument in favour of two positions for hosting complementizers are the dual complementizer systems in many southern
Chapter 4. Analysis 115
Italian dialects and in Romanian, some preceding and others following topics and foci (Ledgeway 2012). Hence, in order to determine the possible structure of the left periphery in embedded contexts, one needs to know in which projection the complementizer under question is hosted. Since Danckaert (2012) finds fronting to the left of the respective complementizer in Latin adverbial clauses, he assumes the respective complementizers to occupy Spec,FinP. For Medieval Romance, Benincà (2006) adopts the idea that in embedded contexts, the CP is blocked for dependent wh-interrogatives with the wh-element being located in the lowest projection. Non-interrogative embedded clauses, in contrast, allow the CP to be accessible for fronted XPs since the respective subordinate clause items occur in a “very high position in CP” (Benincà 2006: 73). This question as to whether the left periphery is available for fronting is postponed to the end of the upcoming subchapter (section 4.1.13), where the previous research on the status of subordinate clause items with respect to their location in ForceP or FinP is discussed in detail. Next, the analysis of the status and positioning of the subordinate clause item is presented in order to establish whether, in the embedded clauses in question, one can assume a split CP or not.
4.1.1.3 Status of subordinate clause items in Medieval French
Salvesen (2014) analyses the role of the French complementizer que with respect to the left periphery. This analysis is theoretically based on Kayne (1976), who suggests that, in finite embedded clauses, que is present in the COMP head or C0, where, in Standard French, it is overtly realized in all embedded finite clauses except in relative and interrogative clauses. Accordingly, the overt realization in the latter two is blocked by a variant of the Doubly-filled- COMP-filter, which is active in Standard French but not in some vernacular varieties of French where que is overtly realized after the relative clause item (cf. Salvesen 2014: 51). Salvesen (2014) concludes that there are different complementizer types in Old French. First, if there is no other element in the sentence to be assumed to be in the left periphery, it is a case of a non- split CP, hence there is only a projection composed of a head containing the complementizer and its specifieras can be seen in (25) taken from Salvesen (2014: 74).
(25) Non-split CP
[Force/FinP[Force/Fin° que]]
Chapter 4. Analysis 116
Second, if a split CP is activated, Salvesen (2014: 74) assumes a chain of complementizers as in (26) adapted here to host a focus under FocP126, where the complementizer is merged under Fin0 and then cyclically moved to Force0.The head-movement of the complementizer allows to merge material to the specifier of the respective head, as, for instance, fronting of a focus to FocP.
(26) Split CP
[ForceP [Force° quei [FocP Focus [Foc° quei [FinP [Fin° quei ]]]]]]
The diachronic data that Salvesen (2014) takes into account corresponds, as she shows, to findings of Roehrs and Labelle (2003) in acquisitional data. In both groups, constructions are attested where either the complementizer is not in the canonical place as in Standard French (27) or it is doubled; (28) taken from Salvesen (2014: 56).
(27) Il s’est aperçu __ la porte que elle était ouverte
He REFL.is noticed __ the doori COMP shei was open ‘He noticed the door that it was open’ (five-year-old child)
(28) Ils savaient pas que leur maman qu’elle était rentrée
They knew not COMP their mummy COMP.she had come home ‘They didn’t know that their mummy that she had come home.’ (six-year-old child)
Based on Nunes’s (2004) theory of chains, Salvesen (2014) assumes that in Old French and in acquisitional data only the head and the copies can be phonetically realized but not the foot, i.e. the complementizer in Fin0. This is however not the case in Standard French, where, according to Salvesen (2014), only the head of the chain can be overtly realized, though the foot is situated as well in Fin0.
Third, she observes that for some classes of matrix verbs (enunciative, cognitive, semi-factive or volitional) the omission of the complementizer is possible in the embedded clauses and that these as well as their counterparts with an overt complementizer regularly exhibit V2. These observations lead her to the conclusion that for the above-mentioned matrix verbs the
126 Salvesen’s (2014) example exemplifies the structure for a topic.
Chapter 4. Analysis 117 complementizer is merged directly under Force0, leaving Fin0 accessible to the finite verb (29) taken from Salvesen (2014: 74).
(29) Matrix verbs being enunciative, cognitive, semi-factive or volitional
[ForceP [Force° que [FinP [Fin° ø]]]]
This means that in Medieval French, a split CP can be assumed for que as a complementizer. The exact position of the overtly realized copy of the complementizer in the derivation can be defined with respect to the position of the element(s) that activate(s) the left periphery. However, regarding relative clause items, Salvesen (2014) does not give a clear answer since she treats relative clause items along the lines of Kayne (1976) as being hosted by a specifier within the CP. Hence the question whether the assumed combination of the relative clause item and silent complementizer in a C head prevents the splitting of the CP and thus results in a structure as in (25) remains unsolved. In a next step, it is, therefore, necessary to more precisely look at the nature that is attributed to French relative clause items, especially to qui.
Recall that, with regard to finite relative clauses, Modern French has two paradigms of subject and direct object relative clause items. On the one hand, the variants of lequel, on the other hand, qui, que, quoi and dont. Sportiche (2011: 86) gives an overview over the basic distribution of these relative clause items, as adopted in table 1.127
Qui Que quoi /lequel/ +b128 -b +b -b +b -b +b -b tensed free relatives + + ? - - + - - other relatives + + ? - - + - +
Table 1. Distribution of French relative clause items
Sportiche (2011) distinguishes between bare (+b) and non-bare (-b) – for example as an object of a preposition – environments of the pronouns. He observes that the status of que is unclear because of the homonymy with the complementizer que. Since it appears only in bare contexts, it could be analysed as a complementizer or as a relative clause item.
127 The first two lines of Sportiche’s (2011: 86) table on tensed and in-situ interrogatives are removed above, since they are not of interest to the present work. 128 Bare qui occurs as a subject relative clause item with human and non-human heads
Chapter 4. Analysis 118
Kayne (1976) considers qui to be an allomorph of the complementizer que and supposes that the complementary distribution of qui and que is related to subject extraction: here are examples in (30) and (31).
(30) À qui crois-tu que/*qui Marie parle? To whom think.you que/qui Marie speaks ‘To whom do you think that Mary speaks?’
(31) Qui crois-tu qui/*que parle à Marie? Who think.you qui/que speaks to Mary ‘Who do you think that speaks to Mary?
He grounds his analysis on the following claims129:
− All embedded tensed sentences in French begin with que except in embedded interrogatives and relatives where a wh-item must be used in the CP.
− In French restrictive relative clauses, overt DPs (but not PP) are prohibited in COMP.
The latter explains the ungrammaticality of /lequel/ and quoi in bare restrictive environments, since Kayne (1976) assumes que to be the canonical French complementizer and qui to be its variant in cases of subject extraction. Both are insensitive to the [+/-human] character of the antecedent head. Hence, for Kayne (1976), there are two homonymous forms of qui: the qui- variant of the complementizer que and the [+human] qui that can be found in non-bare relative contexts. Kayne’s article (1976) had considerable impact and was developed by Rizzi (1990), Rooryck (2000), Taraldsen (2001, 2002) and Rizzi and Shlonsky (2007) among others. For the present purposes, only Taraldsen (2002) and Rizzi and Shlonsky (2007) are discussed in detail, since these include the previous approaches.
On grounds of a similar alternation in Vallader between cha and chi and based on the observation that chi and Vallader expletive i share a morphophonemic property, Taraldsen (2002) suggests that Vallader chi is the contracted form of the complementizer cha and i and accordingly analyses French qui to be composed of the complementizer que and an expletive i. Taraldsen (2002) takes both i in Vallader and in French to have evolved from Latin id that has
129 For a detailed justification of both claims cf. Kayne (1976: 255-259).
Chapter 4. Analysis 119 lost its person, number and gender features in the transition from the 3 to the 2 gender system. According to Taraldsen (2002)130, expletive i differs from French expletive il in three respects: first, there isn’t any occurrence of i bearing a final l; second, there is no subject-verb-agreement with respect to person or number; third, it doesn’t require an indefinite associate as expletive il does. The distribution of expletive i to subject extraction contexts and colloquial (t)i complex inversion in Quebec French follows, as Taraldsen (2002) suggests, from its impoverished morphology lacking gender and number features. Accordingly, these don’t allow to check the uninterpretable number feature in finite I that needs to be checked before Spell-Out. In Vallader, in contrast to French, the checking can be performed by a pre-Spell-out pure feature movement of the number feature of a postverbal subject DP licensing (32), taken from Taraldsen (2002: 31), his (8). A corresponding French example of (32) is ungrammatical since pure feature movement is not available in French (33), cf. Taraldsen (2002: 32).
(32) I turnaran quei temps docts.
It will.return.PL those times learned
(33) *I sont arrivées ses copines. It are arrived her friends
Rizzi and Shlonsky (2007) are concerned with the que and qui alternation in conjunction with broader reflections on subject extraction. In order to explain different instances of subject- object asymmetries, they postulate the existence of a functional subject projection SubjP that requires the attraction of a “nominal” to its specifier in order to determine a subject-predicate- articulation and to satisfy the Subject Criterion. Since they refer to Rizzi (2006) for this idea and to his conception of criterial freezing – i.e. a phrase that satisfies a criterion is frozen in place and cannot move further to a distinct criterial position – they need to explain how grammatical subject extraction contexts (and, hence, French subject extraction with qui) are licensed. They follow Taraldsen (2001) in splitting up qui into the complementizer que and an expletive i that they define along the lines of Taraldsen (2002) mentioned above. According to them, i can be thought as clitic-like pronominal element that is a particular nominal realization of the Fin0 head and externally merged to the latter. The relative operator cannot be moved to Spec,SubjP in order to satisfy the Subject Criterion as it would be frozen in place and therefore
130 See also Rizzi and Shlonsky (2007). Compare the discussion below.
Chapter 4. Analysis 120 would not be able to satisfy the criterial position for relative operators in the left periphery. Hence, Rizzi and Shlonsky (2007) generally suggest the characterization of the criterial configuration and propose a locally based approach, i.e. a configuration characterized by local c-command. In order to fulfil the requirements of the Subject Criterion, after merging the Subj°,Fin° selected by the nominal, –i is merged. They further assume that the relative operator moves through Spec,FinP in order to validate the number features of i, and to exclude the selection of i when no A’-movement to the left periphery takes place. Finally, they address the question of contrast as in (34), cf. Rizzi and Shlonsky (2007: 139), and of how both elements can satisfy the Subject Criterion.
(34) a. L’homme qui, la semaine prochaine, partira en Italie ‘The man who, next week, will leave to Italy.’ b. * Il, la semaine prochaine, partira en Italie ‘He, next week, will leave to Italy.’ c. La semaine prochaine, il partira en Italie ‘Next week, he will leave to Italy.’ d. Jean, la semaine prochaine, partira en Italie ‘Jean, next week, will leave to Italy.’
To account for the contrast between (34b) and (34a)/(34d), Rizzi and Shlonsky (2007) propose the idea of a subfield in between the CP field and the IP field, where the two heads Subj0 and Mod0 131 are freely ordered (35), cf. Rizzi and Shlonsky (2007: 140), their (58).
(35) a. Subj [AdvP Mod [Agr . . .]] b. AdvP Mod [Subj [Agr . . .]]
Hence, for (34b), in order to be adjacent to Agr, the appropriate configuration would be (35a), while (34a) and (34d) would be derived according to (35b).
To sum up the proposals emanating from Kayne (1976), both Taraldsen (2002) and Rizzi and Shlonsky (2007) assume that the split up of qui into a complementizer que and an expletive i implies that nothing can intervene between the two components. Hence, they implicitly propose that the left periphery cannot be activated in French subject extraction contexts.
131 The modifier head Mod0 can attract to its specifier position a highlighted adverbial such as la semaine prochaine.
Chapter 4. Analysis 121
An alternative proposal is made by Sportiche (2011). He suggests the existence of two paradigms of relative pronouns in French along the lines of Cardinaletti and Starke’s (1999) proposal for personal pronouns. Accordingly, the French personal pronoun system is split up in a strong and a weak paradigm, the system itself being organized according to three dimensions: case, the [+/- human] and the strong/weak distinction. Sportiche (2011) examines the properties of bare relative pronouns (qui, que, dont and où) and concludes that they correspond to the properties that Cardinaletti and Starke (1999) attribute to weak forms: a) no [+/- human] distinction, b) must occur in the CP, c) show optional phonological closeness, i.e. elision, liaison or change to a glide. Therefore, he assumes the existence of a weak paradigm of relative pronouns that exhibits neutralization of the [+/- human] distinction but is sensitive to case. Here are the corresponding parts of Sportiche’s (2011: 97) table 4.
Nom Acc Dat Gen Loc Elative Temp Manner Cause strong [+h] qui qui à qui de qui - - - - - strong [-h] quoi quoi à quoi de quoi où d’où quand comment pourquoi weak [0h] qui que - dont où dont où dont %ø
Table 2. Tensed restrictive relative clause item system132
Sportiche’s (2011) approach can be subsumed as a simple description of the morpho-syntax of French relative clause items system without a special rule for que and qui in case of subject extraction. He explains the restricted distribution of bare /lequel/, considered to be strong relative clause items, and other strong relative clause items to be grounded in a competition between bare forms according to which the weak, the less specified form, is systematically favoured if the syntactic context allows it.
The further question arises: what status and which position do weak relative clause items have? Sportiche (2011) discusses two options without overtly preferring one to the other. On the one hand, weak forms could be a combination of a head (or heads) in the C system and pronominal properties, since he observes a link between available weak forms and the finiteness of the clause. On the other hand, weak forms could be considered to be relative pronouns. This would
132 Explanations: − The second column represents the [+/- h(uman)] distinction with 0h being unspecified for [human]. − Italics indicate that the form is not allowed to occur bare. − A - denotes that the corresponding form doesn’t exist. − An ø corresponds to a silent form. − A % indicates that the form is allowed in certain colloquial registers.
Chapter 4. Analysis 122 explain the common inventory of the weak relative and the weak interrogative system. With respect to the position of the weak relative clause items within the left periphery, Sportiche (2011) suggests, based on Braningan (1992), that subject relative pronouns and all weak relative pronouns occupy a peripheral position lower than strong wh-phrases and clitic-left-dislocated elements. (5) is readopted in (36) and the two possible host projections of relative clause items are introduced:
(36) [ForceP {Topic [FrameP* [ThemeP* [Rci1P {Focus [ContrastFocP* [Rci2P [NInformFocP [VerumFocP [FinP
[TP ]]]]]]}]]]}]
With respect to the accessibility of the left periphery in relative clauses, all depends on another question, namely: how low means lower? The relative clause items could be merged in a projection above the focus field but below the topic field, hence, this corresponds to the position that Ledgeway (2012) suggests for the Int(errogative) projection. To choose an IntP as host for the weak relative clause items would be in conformity with the above observed common inventory of weak interrogative and weak relative pronouns. However, concerning the exact position, Benincà (2006), in contrast, situates the IntP within the Focus field and below the first focus projection, hence, leaving only a small part of the left periphery accessible to the potential fronting of elements within relative clauses.
To sum up, for the French complementizer que, Salvesen (2014) suggests that a split CP is possible with different overt realizations in Medieval French: the complementizer can surge in a non-canonical position or may be doubled. With respect to the relative clause items, two positions can be defended: the more prominent one is to analyse relative que and qui as complementizers, respectively as a cohesion of a complementizer and an expletive element. This implies, at least for the latter, that the CP cannot be split and that the left periphery is blocked. Sportiche’s (2011) analysis of weak relative clause items leaves a part of the CP accessible for other items depending on where the weak relative clause items are merged.
4.1.2 On “Stylistic Fronting”
Recall that the term “Stylistic Fronting” was first used by Maling (1980/1990) to describe occurrences of fronting in embedded clauses in Icelandic, where a constituent of the VP appears to be moved to unfilled subject positions. Cardinaletti and Roberts (1990/2002) compare the Icelandic data to similar constructions in Old Romance varieties and thus establish the
Chapter 4. Analysis 123 application of the notion “Stylistic Fronting” for Romance as illustrated by the Medieval French example in (3) taken from Cardinaletti and Roberts (1990/2002: 129).
(37) Por l’esperance qu’ an lui ont
for the hope which in him have.3PL ‘For the hope which they have in him’
”Stylistic Fronting” is taken to be very productive at earlier stages of Scandinavian and Romance languages, but has dwindled to a marginal use in Modern Icelandic and Faroese (Holmberg 2006). The presence of the phenomenon in Modern Romance is highly debated (for Italian, see for instance, Cardinaletti 2003; Franco 2009; for a similar construction in Sardinian, Egerland 2011, 2013).
The marginal use of the construction in Modern Icelandic resurges when it comes to the term “Stylistic Fronting”, which is, as Molnár (2010) illustrates, confusing: “stylistic” is considered to refer, on the one hand, to the fact that some speakers perceive the phenomenon as being archaic and belonging to high registers. On the other hand, it alludes to the optionality of the fronting, i.e. the fact that occurrences with and without “Stylistic Fronting” alternate freely, devoid of different pragmatic effects, as for instance in the examples (38) and (39) taken from Molnár (2010: 32).133
(38) Hver heldur þú að stoliði hafi ti hjólinu? who think you that stolen has the.bike ‘Who do you think has stolen the bike?’
(39) Hver heldur þú að hafi stolið hjólinu? who think you that has stolen the.bike ‘Who do you think has stolen the bike?’
Furthermore, Maling (1980/1990) is not consistent in the designation of the phenomenon: her article is entitled “inversion” but in the article she uses “fronting”. This leads Molnár (2010) to distinguish between two types of fronting, one that she labels “Stylistic Fronting” and the other one “Stylistic Inversion”.
133 Note that to indicate the base positions of the corresponding elements a “tx” was chosen instead of a the notation “copy of x” in order to support ease of reading in these complex derivations.
Chapter 4. Analysis 124
Numerous studies have investigated “Stylistic Fronting” in Scandinavian and Old Romance, regarding the three following areas:
− Common premises of “Stylistic Fronting” in Romance and Scandinavian
− Differences between “Stylistic Fronting” and other types of A’-movement (focus movement, topicalization)?
− The relevance of information-structural properties of fronting with respect to its syntactic analysis
The two latter points are of particular relevance, leaving the question of common grounds between the Romance and Scandinavian data in the background. Since the different studies are contradictory in various respects, the following summary of previous research is organized into three subchapters. The first discusses various information-structural roles ascribed to the fronted elements. The second presents different views on the syntactic properties of the phenomenon. Finally, the third summarizes and assesses the respective analyses of the fronting.
Before turning to the considerations of the information-structural properties attributed to the fronting constructions, it is worthwhile to take a look at the different perspectives of previous research on Medieval French “Stylistic Fronting”, especially since the data taken into account vary substantially. Cardinaletti and Roberts (1990/2002) consider embedded non-bridge complement clauses including null subjects. Their examples come from Hirschbühler (1990), who works on prose and verse literary texts. Mathieu (2006, 2013) investigates embedded and main clauses with subject gap. He examines various types of fronting items: participles, infinitives, negation, adjectives, adverbs, nominals and PP. His research is essentially based on his own corpus that comprises also some other secondary corpora, i.e. Frantext and Textes de Français Ancien (TFA) database. The corpus that Mathieu (2006) uses is predominantly composed of literary texts including verse and prose. Labelle (2007) focuses on embedded sentences taken from 12th century literary texts in the TFA database. For fronting occurrences in this data considered to represent Early Old French, she argues against a “Stylistic Fronting” account. However, for fronting occurrences from the 13th century onwards taken from Vance (1997), i.e. Late Old French, which she takes as a basis for comparison, Labelle does assume a “Stylistic Fronting” account. Hence, her article includes some reflections on “Stylistic Fronting” for Medieval French and is taken into account in the following. As well as Labelle
Chapter 4. Analysis 125
(2007), Labelle and Hirschbühler (2014a, b, in press) consider fronted non-finite verb forms, i.e. past participles and infinitives. They take into account 70 main and 1193 embedded contexts of the corpus MCVF (10th to 16th century), the majority of which are literary texts. Salvesen (2011) examines “Stylistic Fronting” in a rather restricted contexts, where finite forms of the modal verbs povoir, devoir and voloir are preceded by the infinitives faire or dire. Her examples in main and embedded clauses are taken from prose and verse texts of the “corpus de la literature médiévale” (9th to 16th century). The diverse areas investigated in the different studies need to be kept in mind when turning to the syntactic and pragmatic analyses.
4.1.2.1 Information-structural evaluation
With respect to pragmatic considerations, the majority of the studies on “Stylistic Fronting” in Medieval French either do not address the question (Cardinaletti and Roberts 1990/2002, Labelle 2007, Salvesen 2011) or conclude that the fronted items do not exhibit a consistent informational role. Labelle and Hirschbühler (in press) state that the fronting can be due to different types of information: in both embedded and main clauses, it may correspond to (or be a part of) the information focus of the clause (40) (Labelle and Hirschbühler (in press, their (11)), or to already known background information (41) (ibid., their (16)).
(40) David cunfortad sa muiller Bethsabéé, ki deshaitéé fud David comforted his wife Bethsabée who suffering was ‘David comforted his wife Bethsabée, who was suffering’ (Quatre livre 80.3028)
(41) Si cururent par quinze jurs / Desque li venz tuz lur fud gurz So sailed for fifteen days Until the wind all them was weak Dunc s’ esmaient tuit li frere / Pur le vent qui falit ere.
then REFL.frighten all the brothers for the wind that stopped was ‘They sailed on during fifteen days until the wind calmed on them. Then, all the brothers got frightened because of the wind that had stopped blowing’ (Brendan, 36.125, v. 219-221)
Furthermore, they observe that in main clauses the fronted element may be strongly, i.e. emphatically or contrastively, focalized as in (42) (Labelle and Hirschbühler in press, their (19)).
Chapter 4. Analysis 126
(42) car par le conseil Joseph avoit il recovree sa terre since through the advice Joseph had he recovered his land que Tholomers li toloit, et tolue li eust il se… that Tholomers him took, and taken him had he if… ‘since through Joseph’s advice, he had recovered his land that Tholomers was taking from him, and he would have taken [it] from him if … (Queste, 113.2974)
Hence, Labelle and Hirschbühler (in press) conclude that “Stylistic Fronting” is not associated with a specific informational role, and it is not resulting in defocalizing an element.
In contrast, the articles of Mathieu (2006, 2013) on Medieval French and the work of Fischer (2010, 2014) on different Old Romance languages claim that the stylistically fronted items are of information-structural relevance. Mathieu (2006, 2013), on the one hand, observes that the fronted elements in his data are textually given and share the semantics properties of appositives, i.e. they are said to represent non-presupposed asserted information, with the result that the focus corresponds to the remaining embedded material. He follows Buridant (2000) in stating that the qui-O-V order appears to be preferred for secondary information, while the qui- V-O seems to be preferred for important information on the part of the whole sentence. Accordingly, Mathieu (2006: 247-248) gives the following examples for new (43) and old (44) information.134
(43) Si cort meintenant a une espee qui ert seur un lit and runs straight-away to a sword which is on a bed ‘He runs straight away to a sword that is left on a bed’ (La Mort le Roi Artu 86,10)
(44) A ces paroles vint leanz li chevaliers qui a l’assemblee devoit aller To these words came in the knight who at the.assembly must go ‘On these words, the knight who was supposed to go to the tournament came in.’ (La Mort le Roi Artu 12.22)
134 Note that, in contrast to what Mathieu (2006: 247) states, the indefiniteness of the relative antecedent cannot matter for the information status of the stylistically fronted element; compare example (43) to example (45) on the next page.
Chapter 4. Analysis 127
Hence, he takes the fronted items to be defocalized elements, having the same semantic status as asserted background topics. However, he does not explain the guiding principles of his information-structural analysis of the data. On the other hand, Fischer (2010, 2014), based on Fischer and Alexiadou (2001), states that the fronted items are generally emphasized, thus foregrounded or focalized, but that they have already been mentioned in previous discourse. She suggests that this emphasis of stylistically fronted elements is special since their positive emphatic and, at the same time, given character does not permit an alternative reading, hence, is affecting truth conditions.135 Fischer (2014) gives an insight in her information-structural guiding principles by providing a sample analysis of a fronted element. For (45) taken from Fischer (2010: 151), she first situates the sentences within the whole story by describing the context
(45) Une espee rasauda qui brisieei est ti en deus moitiez a sword sharp which broken is in two halves ‘a sharp sword that is broken into two halves’ (1238,13 conperc)
Next, she summarizes the relevant passages in the immediate context of (45): “[It] describes Gawain’s visit to a castle, where he is confronted with a dead knight lying on a bier. On the knight’s breast lies a sword which is broken in half.” (Fischer 2010: 151). Gawain fails the task to put the sword together again and when he “asks to be told the story of the sword […] the king tells him that he is not yet worthy of knowing the secrets […] since the sword that is broken in two halves has not yet been put together” (Fischer 2010: 151). As can be seen, the relative in (41) is pursued as in (46) (Fischer 2010: 151).
(46) … mais ne fu pas si rafaitiez
… but NEG was not so repaired ‘… but has not been repaired yet.’
Fischer’s (2010) pragmatic interpretation is based on her intuition: “in my interpretation, of the context […] brisiee is stylistically fronted to emphasise the fact that the sword is still broken. The reader knows about the broken sword but here the ‘brokeness’ is emphasized again.” (Fischer 2010: 151). Note that a contrastive reading of brisiee is imaginable, too. The participle
135 For the sake of completeness, note that this description is linked to the definition of verum focus sketched above.
Chapter 4. Analysis 128 is contrasted with the participle in the following relative clause rafaitiez hence yielding the two opposites ‘broken – repaired’.136 Hence, although the results Fischer’s (2010) approach achieves are debatable, the general proceedings may be seized as a suggestion for further analyses, yet.
For Icelandic, the general claim is that the fronted elements are not of informational relevance (Maling 1980/1990, Holmberg 2006, among others). However, Hrafnbjargarson (2004) claims that the fronted element is focalized, while Sigurðsson (2010) observes that it is compatible with contrastive focus in certain contexts. For Romance languages, there are two further works which claim the information-structural relevance of “Stylistic Fronting”.137 Franco (2012) suggests that for Old Florentine, in the absence of an overt subject, the fronted element is interpreted as Familiar Topic or “subject of predication”. Egerland (2011, 2013) takes fronting in Sardinian to be similar to Old Romance “Stylistic Fronting” and states that the fronted elements have narrow focus. Finally, Molnár (2010), who has a comparative approach on Scandinavian and Romance “Stylistic Fronting”, proposes to distinguish at least two different subtypes each having different discourse behaviour due to a different syntactic derivation. What she calls “Stylistic Inversion” is said to not necessarily bear emphasis and contrast, while “Stylistic Fronting” does. She suggests that this could be a way to bring together the contrasting analyses in the field: for instance, Fischer (2010, 2014) and Mathieu (2006, 2013) for Old French who assume that the stylistically fronted elements have already been mentioned in the previous discourse.
To sum up the present discussion, it appears that the different findings as to the information- structural value of “Stylistic Fronting” are at odds. While some authors reject the idea of an information-structural value of the fronted elements, this is proposed by other authors. Yet, the latter accounts exhibit considerable disagreements.
4.1.2.2 Syntactic properties
Recall the definition of “Stylistic Fronting” given by Maling (1980/1990): she defines occurrences of fronting in embedded clauses in Icelandic, where elements appear to be moved to unfilled subject positions, as “Stylistic Fronting”. As we have seen in the introductory
136 The matter is taken up in the chapter on the analysis of our proper data. 137 Analyses of the type of Cardinaletti (2003) for Italian, who observes the fronting does not create a marked word order but has a literary or formal flavour, are not taken into consideration.
Chapter 4. Analysis 129 remarks to the present sub-chapter, the studies on “Stylistic Fronting” in Medieval French focus on different data and thus feature in different syntactic environments, e.g. in embedded and in main contexts. Accordingly, the basic syntactic properties that are claimed to characterize “Stylistic Fronting” vary considerably. Bearing this problem in mind, here is an overview in the present section of the syntactic features distinctive of “Stylistic Fronting”. The review of the current research concentrates on factors relevant to “Stylistic Fronting” in Medieval: whenever useful, there is a recourse to findings on other languages.
Clause-boundedness
Since Maling’s (1980/1990) article, one of the important properties of “Stylistic Fronting”, as distinct from Topicalization, is the fact that the former cannot occur over a long distance, i.e. outside the respective clause. With respect to the clause-boundedness of “Stylistic Fronting” in Medieval French, one notices that this criterion seems to be of less relevance to the different authors. Cardinaletti and Roberts (1990/2002) and Labelle and Hirschbühler (in press) do not address the issue, Salvesen (2011) mentions it only briefly without discussing it, while Labelle (2007) notes that she cannot find any relevant evidence. Mathieu (2013) takes the issue not to be relevant to the discussion at hand. However, in his article from 2006, he states that “Stylistic Fronting” is clause-bounded. Finally, Fischer (2010) finds no evidence for “Stylistic Fronting” implying movement outside an embedded clause, as shown by (45) retaken here as (47), in contrast to occurrences exhibiting topicalization as in (48); examples taken from Fischer (2010: 121).
(47) Une espee rasauda qui brisieei est ti en deus moitiez
a sword sharp which brokeni is in two halves ‘a sharp sword that is broken into two halves’ (1238, 13, conperc)
(48) Car enemisi pense il bien que ce soit ti because enemies believe he well that it be ‘because he believes that there are enemies’ (La queste de Saint Graal 112)
For the sake of completeness, “Stylistic Fronting” in Medieval French can even be combined with long-distance movement, compare (49), taken from Labelle and Hirschbühler (in press, their (68)).
Chapter 4. Analysis 130
(49) [en sarraguce]i sai ben qu’alerj m’estoet tj ti
[in Sarraguce]i know well that.go me.is-necessary I know well that I must go to Sarraguce’ (Roland, 23.283)
While aler is stylistically fronted to the left edge of the embedded clause, en sarraguce is topicalised and moved out of the embedded clause to the left periphery of the whole complex clause.
Locality conditions
According to Maling (1980/1990), “Stylistic Fronting” in Icelandic seems to be governed by the following accessibility hierarchy in (50), taken from Maling (1980/1990: 81).
(50) ekki (‘not’) > predicative adjective > past participle/verbal particle
Further research on Icelandic has criticised this hierarchy based on the following observations (see for instance the synopsis in Holmberg 2006: 539-540). First, not only negation, but also sentence adverbs can block the movement of other elements. Second, participles other than those of vera ‘be’ and hafa ‘have’ do undergo “Stylistic Fronting” instead of predicative adjectives contained in a small clause. Third, the equal accessibility of a verb and a verb particle are assumed to represent the more general idea that a head and its complement are equally accessible. As a consequence, the above mentioned observations were reconsidered in light of the work on locality conditions on movement, namely the Head Movement Constraint and Relativized Minimality (Jónsson 1991) and the Minimal Link Condition (Holmberg 2000). Recent work on Medieval French is essentially based on the latter, which is retaken in (51), compare Chomsky (1995: 355-356).
(51) Minimal Link Condition (MLC) A feature F attracts the closest feature that can check F. Closeness is defined in terms of c-command: in a configuration [α … β … γ] where α c-commands β and γ, β is closer than γ to α, if β asymmetrically c-commands γ.
The Minimal Link Condition predicts that the closest element is stylistically fronted and hence explains the above shown observations on Icelandic (for more details, see Holmberg 2006). With respect to Medieval French, once again, not all authors address the issue (Cardinaletti and
Chapter 4. Analysis 131
Roberts 1990/2002). Salvesen (2011) more generally comments on the accessibility hierarchy but does not relate it to her Medieval French data. Fischer (2010) states that “Stylistic Fronting” in Medieval French respects the Minimal Link condition. Her examples (2010: 119-120), retaken here in (52), (53) and (54) illustrate different observations in this matter.
(52) Que hautementi avoit ti commenciee chevalerie that highly have started knighthood ‘that he has greatly started knighthood’ (1225ca, queste)
As (52) shows, the adverb hautement is stylistically moved but not the participle commenciee. Fischer (2010) points out that this is always the case in contexts with an adverb between the finite verb and the infinitive or between the finite verb and the past participle. Furthermore, she indicates that due to their equidistance to the triggering head, the past participle and the complement can equally undergo SF (53) and (54) .138
(53) Qui nommeei est ti virgene marie who named is virgin Mary ‘who is called Virgin Mary’ (1227ca, mir)
(54) Qui [tel juge]i avez estably ti aussi comme en enseignement who [such judge] have established also like in education ‘who have established such a judge also for educating’ (1280, abe)
I do not share her assumption that the same effect can be seen with negation since the examples she provides do not show the effect of equidistance of negation and complements or past participles. Mathieu (2006) explains examples such as (54) by the Minimal Link Condition in (51) as well. In his data he observes that double “Stylistic Fronting” constructions are possible in Medieval French, namely a head and a phrase at the same time but never two heads or two phrases.
In contrast, Labelle (2007: 306) gives the examples in (55) and (56) in order to explain that in her data, there is no accessibility hierarchy.
138. Fischer (2010) does not compare (53) and (54). However, the examples, on which she has recourse to illustrate the equidistance do not contain fronting of a past participle instead of a complement.
Chapter 4. Analysis 132
(55) Huelin dist une novele qui a Gorm[un]d ne fut pas bele
Huelin said a piece-of-news which to Gormund NEG was not good ‘Huelin brought news which didn’t please Gormund’ (Gormont, 239–240)
(56) Se de ce vous volez desfendre, alez en tost voz armes prendre
if of this you want to.defend, go.2PL LOC soon your weapons take ‘if you want to defend yourself, go get your weapons now’ (Thebes1, p. 96)
According to her, Medieval French does not obey the accessibility hierarchy since in (55) the PP a Gormund is fronted instead of the negative adverb pas. Similarly, in (56), the PP de ce is raised instead of the infinitive desfendre.
Mathieu (2013) contradicts Labelle (2007). With respect to (56) , he argues that the PP de ce and the infinitive desfendre are sisters. Hence the latter does not asymmetrically c-command the former and both are equidistant to the target position of “Stylistic Fronting”. Furthermore, he assumes, as illustrated in the following example in (57) (2013: 339), that a) Medieval French negation markers as pas, mie, and point are heads and not phrases, b) that the fronting of two elements targets two different positions, and c) that they do not compete with each other.
(57) Quant la pucele le salue, qui sa bouchei pasj when the young girl him salute who his mouth not
n’en palue tj ti ne ne li a neant costé.
neg.en turn-white neither NEG to-him has nothing cost ‘The young girl’s greeting which was not unpleasant did not cost him anything.’ (Chevalier à la Charrette, 1570-1573)
Regarding (55) then, one can assume that only the phrase has been moved not the head.
To this idea, Labelle and Hirschbühler (in press) object that Icelandic ekki ‘not’ blocks “Stylistic Fronting” of heads and phrases as illustrated in (58) - (61) , their (20)-(23).
(58) þeir sem hafa ekki búið í Ósló those that have not lived in Oslo
(59) þeir sem ekki hafa búið í Ósló those that not have lived in Oslo
Chapter 4. Analysis 133
(60) *þeir sem búið hafa ekki í Ósló those that lived have not in Oslo
(61) *þeir sem í Ósló hafa ekki búið those that in Oslo have not lived
Accordingly, in (60) , the fronting of the head búið ‘lived’ is ungrammatical, while in (61), the fronting of the PP í Ósló yields an ungrammatical sentence. Furthermore, Labelle and Hirschbühler (in press) note that the “Stylistic Fronting” of a participle is not blocked by a high adverb, compare (62) and (63), their (26) and (27).
(62) car recuvréi sunt veirement ti since found are certainly ‘since they have certainly been found’ (Quatre livre, 18.590)
(63) car demureti i unt trop ti
since stayed LOC have too-much ‘since they stayed there too long’ (Roland, 136.1832)
Finally, they observe that Medieval French also contrasts with Icelandic in the possibility of fronting secondary predicative adjectives (64) and (65).139
(64) Blanche avait la barbe ‘white had the beard’
(65) *madurinn sem rikur er talinn ‘the man that rich is considered’
Hence, they come to the conclusion that the accessibility constraints typical of Icelandic “Stylistic Fronting” are not operative in Medieval French.
Subject gap
Maling (1980/1990) specifies that a subject gap is necessary for the application of “Stylistic Fronting”. For Icelandic, she states that there are three possible origins of a subject gap: a) the
139 Examples taken from their footnote 6.
Chapter 4. Analysis 134 extraction of the subject NP, i.e. by relativization, question formation, comparative clause formation or clefting; b) the usage of impersonal passives or lexically impersonal predicates; or c the postposing of indefinite NP. For Medieval French, generally assumed to be a null- subject language (Vance 1997), the null-subject property represents a fourth possible origin of a subject gap. Hrafnbjargarson (2004) attenuates the idea of a strict subject-gap condition: he observes that “Stylistic Fronting” of a head to the right of a subject pronoun seems to be marginally allowed in Icelandic.140 For Medieval French, the existence of a subject-gap condition appears to be debatable. While some authors, as, for instance, Cardinaletti and Roberts (1990/2002) and Salvesen (2011), follow Maling’s (1980/1990) idea of a subject gap, other authors call it into question as a defining property.141
Fischer (2010, 2014) shows that “Stylistic Fronting” in Medieval French is attested together with subject pronouns and full subject DPs, compare (66) and (67), taken from Fischer (2010: 121-122).
(66) Et quant tu arouséi l avras ti d uille and when you gained it have of.the oil ‘and when you have gained oil’ (1300 ca, mace)
(67) Et sa puissance moulti est ti povre and his power very is poor ‘and his power is very poor (1200,bodo)
Consequently, Fischer (2010) concludes that the subject-gap condition is not active in Medieval French. Note that Fischer’s (2010) examples containing a subject and a stylistically fronted element all are of the order ‘subject – fronted element – finite verb’ (SXV).
For Mathieu (2006, 2013), the subject-gap condition is operative in Medieval French. However, recall that Mathieu (2006) assumes that two elements, namely a phrase and a head, can be stylistically fronted. With respect to the subject-gap condition, he sticks to the distinction
140 Hrafnbjargason (2004: 117) states that the speakers tend to more easily accept the coexistence of a subject pronoun and a stylistically fronted element if the former is cliticised onto the complementizer. 141 Labelle (2007) is not mentioned in what follows since she discusses the V2 in embedded clauses more generally and, with respect to the presence of a subject, gives only examples of postverbal subjects (Labelle 2007: 305-307). Since Mathieu (2013) comments about Labelle’s (2007) criticism on his article of 2006, he does not address the issue, either, and he is hence disregarded in what follows.
Chapter 4. Analysis 135 between phrases and heads. While the fronting of phrases is said to be blocked by the presence of an overt subject, the coexistence of a subject and a stylistically fronted head appears to be possible (68) , taken from Mathieu (2006: 251).
(68) L’an m’a conté ce poise moi que partiri vos volez The.one me.has told this saddens me that to.leave you want
del roi ti of.the king ‘I’ve been told – this saddens me – that you want to leave the king.’ (Chevalier à la Charrette 141-142)
In contrast to Fischer’s (2010) examples, the order here is ‘fronted element – subject – finite verb’ (XSV). This alludes to Labelle and Hirschbühler’s (in press) view on the subject-gap condition. In their data they find that “Stylistic Fronting” co-occurs with a preverbal subject in 11% of the cases. Both combinations are attested in their data but the type SXV is much more frequent (9% of the overall data). Furthermore, Labelle and Hirschbühler (in press) observe that the order XSV is almost exclusively restricted to pronominal subjects. Hence, they take the SXV order to be the unmarked order.
To sum up, the relevance of the three syntactic properties of “Stylistic Fronting” presented here have been analysed in different ways. While the clause-boundedness is uniformly taken to be relevant for “Stylistic Fronting”, the existence of locality constraints or the subject-gap condition is strongly debated. The discussion of syntactic properties is here limited to those three aspects, which appear to be subject to purely descriptive adjudication, i.e. presence and/or absence in the respective data. The next section deals with the different analyses that are themselves based on theoretical assumptions and hence might be subject to the different concepts used by the various authors.
4.1.2.3 Analyses
In the following, the different analyses of “Stylistic Fronting” in Medieval French is presented. In order to facilitate the comparison of the different approaches, four central points of the investigations are addressed: the type of movement ascribed, the assumed landing site of the stylistically fronted element, the trigger of “Stylistic Fronting”, and how the loss of the phenomenon is explained for Medieval French.
Chapter 4. Analysis 136
Type of movement
The question of whether “Stylistic Fronting” is an instance of phrasal or of head movement has already been extensively discussed for Icelandic. While Maling (1980/1990) and Holmberg (2000, 2006) consider it to correspond to phrasal movement, Jónsson (1991) and Poole (1996) take it to illustrate head movement. Ott (2009) treats “Stylistic Fronting” as remnant movement in the sense of den Besten and Webelhuth (1987), i.e. as an operation where a phrase containing traces or deleted copies of evacuated elements is moved to a position to the left of the landing site of the evacuated elements. In contrast, Hrafnbjargarson (2004) suggests treating particles and participles as minimal projections which undergo head movement, while adverbs and PPs as maximal projections undergo phrasal movement.
With respect to Medieval French, there are similar tendencies to be found. Apart from Labelle (2007), all the other authors touch upon the issue. Cardinaletti and Roberts (1990/2002) treat “Stylistic Fronting” as implying phrasal movement of nominals and non-nominals.
Mathieu’s (2006, 2013) conception of the movement is on a par with Hrafnbjargarson’s (2004) approach. Since, as can be seen above, Mathieu (2006, 2013) finds in his data that both phrases and heads are moved by “Stylistic Fronting”, he assumes both types of movement to be possible. He explicitly rejects a remnant movement analysis because of examples as in (69), cf. Mathieu (2006: 241-242).
(69) Et pour cela Vouldroye que […] empetrissiez que prendrei
and for this would.like1SG that ask.subj.2PL that to.take
peusse ti a marriage une femme de hault lignage
can.subj.1SG in marriage a woman of high lineage ‘and for this I would like you […] to ask whether I can marry a woman from a higher rank’ (L’Estoire de Griseldis, 1926-1929, verse)
In (69) the infinitive prendre considered by Mathieu (2006) to be a verbal head is stylistically fronted while a PP with which it forms a tight lexical unit a marriage and its complement une femme de hault lignage is left behind. According to Mathieu (2006), this is problematic for a remnant movement analysis since, in Medieval French, VP topicalization is not available and the VP is not a category that can be stylistically fronted. Furthermore, he assumes that the complement has not evacuated the VP/vP since scrambling does not tolerate movement of non-
Chapter 4. Analysis 137 specific indefinite phrases. Recall the above-mentioned observation of Mathieu that a stylistically fronted XP cannot co-occur with an overt subject, while a stylistically fronted head can, cf. (68). This observation is revisited by Fischer (2010) who likewise assumes independent movement of heads and phrases according to the respective category of the fronted item. However, she notes that if one adheres to the view that head movement is problematic within the minimalist framework, a remnant movement analysis could be the answer.
Salvesen (2011), for instance, favours the possibility of having a uniform treatment of both, heads and phrases, to which “Stylistic Fronting” applies and thus has recourse to the remnant movement analysis. Based on examples as in (70), she assumes that “Stylistic Fronting” corresponds to remnant movement of vP (Salvesen 2011: 330).
(70) Mes bien faire ne devoit mie
but well do NEG should not ‘But he would not do any good.’ (LP, 332)
With respect to the word order ‘complement – verbal head – finite verb’, she discusses object movement, since in Medieval French as a VO language one would expect the inverse word order ‘verbal head – complement – finite verb’ as for instance in Old Florentine. Salvesen (2011) assumes it to be an instance of scrambling inside vP, i.e. to the left periphery of vP, before the remnant movement takes place. In contrast, recall example (69) where a verbal complement is stranded after the finite verb. Consider (71) as a further example of the construction, cf. Salvesen (2011: 336).
(71) Li reis creit Deu, faire voelt sun service
the king believes God, to.do will.3SG. his service ‘The king believes in God, and he will be his servant’ (Roland, 3666, verse)
In (71) the infinitive faire has been moved but the complement DP sun service is left behind. Salvesen (2011) assumes that the complement stays in vP and adopts Ott’s (2009) analysis according to which CPs and other heavy elements, therefore possibly DPs and PPs, may be extracted out of the vP and adjoined to the very edge of vP while the infinitive remains in the head v°. After the scrambling, only vP without its uppermost scrambling position is targeted by remnant movement.
Chapter 4. Analysis 138
Labelle and Hirschbühler (in press) base their analysis on the same theoretical premises as Salvesen (2011), that is to say, they consider “Stylistic Fronting” as a combination of optional scrambling and remnant movement. Furthermore, they address Mathieu’s (2006) objections against a remnant movement analysis. They argue that examples as (72) are instances of VP fronting, cf. Labelle and Hirschbühler (in press, their (42)).142
(72) Einsi-comme apres le sarez, Quant bien leü ce livre arez.
as later it will.know.2PL when well read this book will.have ‘… you will know later, when you will have read this book well’ (Prise, .135)
Labelle and Hirschbühler (in press) note that the word order in (72) with the verbal head leü preceding its phrasal complement ce livre is neither predicted nor accounted for by Mathieu (2006) but can be accounted for by a remnant movement analysis. On grounds of the analysis of further examples involving other word order configurations, namely implying the combination of participle and infinitives, they conclude that “Stylistic Fronting” can only be explained by assuming a combination of remnant movement and scrambling. However, their approach does not account for XP-XP configurations. The provided examples all imply the combination of a DP and a participle, whereas the latter is labelled as a head, too.
Landing site
The respective landing site attributed to the elements that have undergone “Stylistic Fronting” depends on two factors: on the one hand, on the different projections assumed to be active in Medieval French and, on the other hand, on the informational weight of the stylistically fronted item that is ascribed to it or not. In the following, 4.1.2.1 on the information-structural evaluation is resumed and, if necessary, the respective understanding of the organization of the clausal projections is contextualized.
Cardinaletti and Roberts’s (1990/2002) article was written before the idea of a split CP became prominent. They take up the idea that the Agr projection can be split up in two projections: the lower Agr2P, whose specifier corresponds to the subject position and the upper Agr1P, a non- topic position. For stylistic fronted elements, they assume the specifier of Agr1 to be the target position, and thus they take “Stylistic Fronting” in Medieval French to be an instance of A-
142 Furthermore, they assume VP topicalization to be active in Medieval French V2 main clause with a participle in the first position.
Chapter 4. Analysis 139 movement.143 In the postscript of the article, they state that one could tend to take Agr1P to be identical to FinP but do not go into details. As seen above, Labelle (2007) does not address the question of information-structural relevance. She assumes that the fronted items need to be considered as scrambled phrases rather than stylistically fronted elements – at least in what she calls Early Old French, i.e. before the 13th century – and that they do not target the CP but instead assumes a split IP of the type in (73) , Labelle (2007: 312).
(73) [CP [AgrP [FP [TP [AspP [vP …]]]]]]
The specifier of FP is said to be the host of the scrambled phrases and adverbs are either adjoined to TP or in Spec,FP whereas the finite verb is under T. For the 13th century data she assumes that the AgrP and the TP were fused and re-interpreted as IP, hence yielding Spec,IP as possible host for stylistically fronted elements. Recall that Salvesen (2011) does not address the issue of information-structural properties of “Stylistic Fronting”, either. Following Franco’s (2009) analysis of “Stylistic Fronting” in Old Florentine, she assumes a split CP and concludes that the remnant movement of vP targets Spec,FinP. However, she notes that the exact landing site is not crucial to her analysis.
Now, here are the two authors that claim that stylistically fronted items are of information- structural relevance: Mathieu (2006, 2013) and Fischer (2010, 2014). Recall that they assume two opposite pragmatic properties. While Mathieu (2006, 2013) takes “Stylistic Fronting” to be a device to mark asserted background information, Fischer (2010, 2014) assumes that it outlines foregrounded or focalized material. Consequently, the landing sites assumed by both authors vary. Mathieu (2006, 2013) suggests that a Top+P is the host of stylistically fronted heads and phrases in a split CP as in (74), taken from Mathieu (2013: 345).
(74) Hanging Topic/Left dislocation [TopP [Top+P [FinP [TP …]]]]
The structure in (74) corresponds to what Mathieu (2013: 345) calls “the skeleton of the clause at the left periphery for Old French”. Note that he does not assume a focus projection to be part of the left periphery of Medieval French – an issue that he does not address explicitly in the
143 They assume that the movement of the fronted item as a non-nominal takes place in two steps: first to the specifier of Agr2 (an argumental position and therefore A-movement) and second to the specifier of Agr1, a non-topic-position. The latter is considered to be an instance of A-movement, too.
Chapter 4. Analysis 140 respective papers. In contrast, Fischer (2010, 2014) takes the host to be a f(ocus) or a f(oregrounding) projection that is situated below the CP and above AgrSP/IP.
With respect to the target of the fronted elements, Labelle and Hirschbühler (in press) presuppose the split CP in (75) their (58).
(75) [Force [FrameP [TopP [FocP [FinP [SubjP [TP …]]]]]]]
While the FrameP is presumed to contain hanging topics and scenic topics, left dislocation is said to be situated in TopP. According to Labelle and Hirschbühler (in press), the FocP can host emphatic and contrastive foci as well as wh-operators, in which (75) differs from (5) and (36). Labelle and Hirschbühler (in press) distinguish three different landing sites according to the different configurations: V2, SXV, or XSV orders. With regard to V2, they assume that co- occurrences of a stylistically fronted element and a postverbal subject are instances of V2. Accordingly, the general landing site is said to be Spec,FinP but in case of a (contrastive) focalization of the fronted item, Spec,FocP is considered to be the respective target position. Following Labelle and Hirschbühler (in press), the V2 configuration is not attested in embedded clauses. With respect to SXV orders, Labelle and Hirschbühler (in press) argue that the target of the fronted items is internal to TP, i.e. below the left periphery. Furthermore, they assume that the configuration is unmarked, since the subject is in its canonical position.144 Consider the example of an embedded question containing “Stylistic Fronting” in (76), taken from Labelle and Hirschbühler (in press, their (67)).
(76) pour Dieu nous dites [FocP Ou [SubjP vous [FP cest suairei [TP preïste ti ]]]].
for God us tell where you this shroud took ‘For God, tell us from where you took this shroud’ (BORON, 55.847)
Since the authors assume that the wh-operator ou occupies Spec,FocP and that the intervening subject is in the canonical subject position in SubjP, the fronted element can only be located below SubjP, compare in (76) cest suaire in FP. This analysis is promoted also for subject relatives bearing qui. Labelle and Hirschbühler (in press) follow Taraldsen (2001) and Rizzi and Shlonsky (2007) and argue that qui is in a criterial freezing configuration with SubjP, compare (77) their (69).
144 Occurrences with an unfilled canonical subject position are taken to be a subcase of SXV and the unmarkedness is said to hold even if the subject is not overtly realized.
Chapter 4. Analysis 141
(77) come cil font [FinP qui [SubjP _ [ [en queste]i [TP doivent entrer ti]]] like those do who in quest must enter ‘Like those, who must start the quest, do.’ (La Queste del Saint Graal)
Accordingly the stylistically fronted PP en queste is said to occupy a position within or below SubjP to the right of Subj°. Finally, regarding the third configuration XSV, Labelle and Hirschbühler (in press) observe that it appears to involve some type of highlighting or foregrounding, i.e. to the topic or focus projection, in both main and embedded contexts. Hence, they assume that in cases of XSV, movement to the left periphery is involved. Take (78) as example (Labelle and Hirschbühler in press, their (77)).
(78) [FocP [Prendre si tost]i [SubjP je vus defent ti ]] Take so early, I you forbid ‘I forbit you to take [this water] as for now’ [c. 1120, BRENDAN, 647]
Here the infinitive prendre si tost is moved to Spec,FocP within the left periphery and the subject remains in its canonical position.
To sum up, Labelle and Hirschbühler’s (in press) approach offers different landing sites inside and below CP according to the different configurations: V2, XSV and SXV. The assumptions of the other authors discussed here are dominated by two central points: first, the locus of the projection hosting stylistically fronted elements with respect to CP and IP, and, second, the information-structural properties. First, as could be seen, Labelle and Hirschbühler (in press) assume two landing sites within CP, and an unmarked one within IP. Salvesen (2011) assumes a split CP with Spec,FinP as target, Mathieu (2006, 2013) a Top+P to be the target within a split CP. Labelle (2007) and Fischer (2010, 2014) assume an intermediate position in between CP and IP, Cardinaletti and Roberts (1990/2002) assume Agr1P to be a projection in between CP and AgrP and later, in the postscript of their article, that Agr1P could tentatively be identified with FinP. Second, according to their information-structural evaluation of “Stylistic Fronting”, Fischer (2010, 2014) and Mathieu (2006, 2013) take the landing site to represent the respective information-structural characteristics, i.e. foregrounding and background assertion. Cardinaletti and Roberts (1990/2002), Labelle (2007) and Salvesen (2011) do not assume an information-structural effect of “Stylistic Fronting”, and Labelle and Hirschbühler (in press) do so only partially. Hence, it is not surprising that they have recourse to general labels for their respective target projections such as F(unctional)P. Finally, as described in the following
Chapter 4. Analysis 142 section, the information-structural role attributed or not to stylistically fronted elements is crucial for the different accounts of what and why “Stylistic Fronting” is triggered.
Trigger
Once again, not all authors do address the question of what triggers “Stylistic Fronting”. Labelle and Hirschbühler (in press) leave the question open, and Cardinaletti and Roberts (1990/2002) do not provide an account, either.
Mathieu (2006) adopts Holmberg’s (2000) idea of splitting the EPP in two features, [D] – i.e. a categorical feature that must be checked by a DP or a clitic in accordance with the [V] feature that drives V-movement – and [P], which requires phonological realization of the element that deletes it.145 However, Mathieu (2006) states that EPP split is not obligatory and that the two features may be realized on different heads. He assumes that verbal agreement in Medieval French was rich enough to check the [D] feature, that TP is a strong phase and that Top+P is only available in case of a split EPP in order to check the [P] feature. In case of “Stylistic Fronting” of a phrase, the EPP is split and the [P] feature appears on Top+°. Since TP is a phase, the stylistically fronted phrase has to pass through Spec,TP. In this way Mathieu’s observation is accounted for that stylistically fronted phrases can co-occur with overt. With respect to the attested co-occurrences of overt subjects and stylistically fronted heads, Mathieu (2006) takes a [V] feature on Top+° to be the trigger for the “Stylistic Fronting” of heads. Labelle and Hirschbühler (in press) object that, provided that TP is a strong phrase and the finite verb is in T° in embedded contexts, the movement of a stylistically fronted head out of TP is blocked by the presence of the finite verb. As Salvesen (2011) points out, Mathieu’s (2006) assumption entails further problems:
− Why should a [V] feature trigger long head movement of an infinitive or a participle but not of the finite verb?
− How does a stylistically fronted head check the [P] feature in case of a subject gap?
− If heads do check the [P] feature in cases where only the head is fronted, why can’t they do so when a phrase is fronted?
145 In other words: requiring that the position in front of the finite verb is filled.
Chapter 4. Analysis 143
− And if so, what is the motivation for the movement of the phrase?
However, Salvesen (2011) does not reject Holmberg’s (2000) proposal but adopts it and avoids the above-mentioned problems by assuming a remnant movement analysis of vP, as can be seen above.
For the Early Old French data Labelle (2007) assumes a [D] and a [T] feature associated with Agr° and T° respectively. [D] is said to be checked by a (pro-) nominal or null subject and [T] by a finite verb that Labelle (2007) supposes to remain in T and is not overtly raised to Agr°. Furthermore, she suggests that the changes leading to 13th c. prose derive from the re- interpreted IP bearing both [D] and [T] features, plus, in accordance with Holmberg (2000), a newly introduced [P] feature. Her analysis makes the following three predictions that apparently correspond to what she finds in her data: first, SVO is assumed to be the most prominent word order in embedded clauses, null subjects seem to disappear in embedded clauses, and scrambled XPs are said to be re-interpreted as filling Spec,IP when it is not filled by a subject.
Fischer (2010, 2014) also takes recourse to feature-driven movement as trigger for “Stylistic Fronting”. However, she rejects Holmberg’s (2000) idea of movement due to a [P] feature and assumes instead the existence of an informational-structural motivation, an uninterpretable [F] feature on F°. It is checked and deleted by the movement of a phrase bearing an interpretable [F] feature, hence, for instance, by a stylistically fronted XP. Fischer (2010, 2014) suggests that the co-occurrences of subjects and stylistically fronted heads can be accounted for by assuming that the subject fills the Spec,FP and that the stylistically fronted head adjoins to F° in order to check the [F] feature.
Evolution of “Stylistic Fronting”
In the present section, the reflections on the evolution of “Stylistic Fronting” are summarized. Most authors concentrate on the loss of the structure from the 15th century onwards. However, as can be seen above, Labelle (20007) makes some assumptions on the origins of “Stylistic Fronting”. She suggests that “Stylistic Fronting” is not active in Early Old French, i.e. before the 13th century. According to her, “Stylistic Fronting” emerged from a configuration that allowed V2 and V3 structures in embedded sentences. This configuration got re-interpreted by the 13th century and resulted in a general SVO order in embedded context allowing “Stylistic Fronting” in cases where Spec,IP is not filled by a subject.
Chapter 4. Analysis 144
Recall that Labelle and Hirschbühler (in press) assume different configurations of “Stylistic Fronting”: V2, SXV and XSV orders. With respect to the latter two, they discuss the diachronic evolution of the different configurations, see their table 2 presented here as table 3.
Main clauses Embedded clauses XSV SXV XSV SXV Old French <1150 3 32 0 10 1150-1199 5 64 1 98 1200-1249 1 22 2 15 1250-1299 1 9 1 22 1300-1349 0 0 1 0 Middle French 1350-1399 13 43 50 20 1400-1449 1 0 0 0 1450-1499 8 6 12 13 16th century 1 0 3 0 Totals 33 176 70 178 Table 3. Evolution of XSV and SXV from 1150 to 16th century (original title: “SXV versus XSV in the parsed corpus”)
Apart from XSV being generally rarer than SXV, Labelle and Hirschbühler (in press) insist on it being mainly a Middle French phenomenon. With regard to the data of embedded contexts, it is striking that XSV configurations clearly outnumber SXV configurations by representing about two thirds of the occurrences between 1350 and 1500. However, Labelle and Hirschbühler (in press) do not discuss these numbers in detail. Instead, they point out that in the 15th century, the occurrences of XSV became more complex as illustrated in (79) taken from Labelle and Hirschbühler (in press), their (80).
(79) mais nexun d’ eulxi pointj veuk je n’ay tj tk ti
but none of them not seen I NEG.have ‘but I have not seen any of them’ (Roi René, Regnault and Jeanneton, in Godefroy (1880, Tome V: 490, nesun)
Here is a structure of the type XXXSV with nexun d’eulx, point and veu as stylistically fronted elements preceding the preverbal subject pronoun je.
Next, the different accounts of what caused the loss of “Stylistic Fronting” are examined. Mathieu (2006) assumes that the disappearance of “Stylistic Fronting” in French is linked to
Chapter 4. Analysis 145 the loss of the property of the finite verb to check the [D] feature of T. Hence, (pro-)nominal subjects need to be present in Spec,TP to check [D], and the EPP+ feature, i.e. the [D] and the [P] feature’s possibility to appear on different heads, was no longer available. As Labelle and Hirschbühler (in press) point out, this account holds for the loss of stylistically fronted phrases. With respect to the loss of stylistically fronted heads, no reasons are given. However, Labelle and Hirschbühler (in press) show that while the rate of null subject remains constant, the rate of stylistically fronted heads and phrases decreases. Hence, they cast doubt on the idea that the disappearance of null subjects and of “Stylistic Fronting” are linked but do not suggest a proper account for the loss of “Stylistic Fronting” configurations.146
Fischer (2010, 2014) notes that the general explanation for the loss of “Stylistic Fronting” in Mainland Scandinavian as being connected to the loss of verb movement to I° and, hence, the loss of verbal inflection cannot account for the loss of “Stylistic Fronting” in Romance. First, she points out that even in French, for which some assume that it has lost its verbal morphology, compare Mathieu’s (2006) assumptions outlined above, the finite verb still moves to I°/T° (cf. Pollock 1989). Second, she objects to Mathieu’s (2006) assumption that the loss of pro-drop entails the disappearance of “Stylistic Fronting”, since Modern Catalan and Modern Spanish are still pro-drop languages, but “Stylistic Fronting” is no longer available. In contrast, Fischer (2010) accounts for the disappearance of “Stylistic Fronting” in claiming that an important change in word order took place and hence the syntactic trigger for “Stylistic Fronting” was lost. According to her, Old Romance languages as topic prominent languages used word order to express differences in information structure. Following Fischer (2010), the phonetical realization of the F(oregrounding)/F(ocus)P depended on whether a “normal” declarative sentence or a foreground or a focus needed to be expressed. Accordingly, in the former case, the [F] feature was weak and phonetically not realized and, in the latter case, the [F] was strong and was checked by head or by phrasal movement. Hence, Fischer (2010) states that the different word orders were at first connected to different semantic interpretations with V2 or SVO word orders corresponding to a neutral/declarative sentence, and “Stylistic Fronting” implied foregrounding/focalization. This stage is said to have been followed by a period where “Stylistic Fronting” was less used. Fischer (2010) assumes that it was first lost in embedded
146 They note, however, that the SXV order survived marginally in elevated style as illustrated by the epigraph to their paper from Mallarmé 1897: i. Un coup de dés jamais n’abolira le hazard A throw of dices never NEG.abolish.FUT the chance
Chapter 4. Analysis 146 sentences due to a stronger semantic commitment of speakers to matrix than to embedded clauses. She takes this loss to be the reason why the specific interpretation could no longer be identified since in matrix clauses a stylistically fronted element could easily be analysed as first constituent of a canonical V2 order located in TopicP and, hence, yielding neutral/declarative interpretation. Fischer (2010) concludes that learners chose the neutral structure without movement to F(ocus)/F(oregrounding)P as default device which triggered a grammaticalisation of the functional category, as its phonetic realization was no longer an option in the grammar of the respective languages.
To conclude the present review of previous research, it becomes apparent that the different analyses and hypotheses made on “Stylistic Fronting” in Medieval French decisively depend on the idea of the information-structural property of the fronted elements. Approaches that favour a neutral pragmatic value of stylistically fronted elements encounter major difficulties with respect to the question of what triggers the fronting (Labelle 2007, Salvesen 2011, Labelle and Hirschbühler in press). In contrast, the two analyses that take a pragmatic value into account come to opposite conclusions which are based, however, on very similar basic observations on the anaphoricity of stylistically fronted elements (Mathieu 2006, 2013; Fischer 2010, 2014). With respect to the latter point, it becomes clear that the identification of a possible common information-structural value of stylistically fronted items is central to further work on the matter. As pointed out in previous chapters of the present work, the data was pragmatically coded for givenness (given, accessible and new). The next step is to reconsider the data in view of a deeper information-structural analysis based on Krifka’s (2008) reflections on information structure. With respect to fronted adjuncts, a selection of the occurrences is analysed, whereas for constituents of VP, an extensive analysis is provided.147
4.2 Results and discussion: the data information-structurally reconsidered
Recall that for the data presented, the annotations of the functional properties are primarily based on the procedure used by Steiner (2014), and that the focus is on the question whether the information displayed by the fronted element is given, new, or accessible. The results show that the informational status of the majority of the fronted elements is new but that the distribution evolves differently with respect to the different clause types. As elaborated in the
147 The different proceedings are justified by the distribution of the two different groups. The sheer number of adjuncts goes beyond the scope of such an extensive analysis.
Chapter 4. Analysis 147 first section of the present chapter, previous research on “Stylistic Fronting” used the same information-structural labels and described the effect of “Stylistic Fronting” in a very similar way but arrived at opposing conclusions (Fischer 2010, 2014; Mathieu 2006, 2013). Therefore, it appears to be suitable to refine the information-structural analysis of the fronted data. In accordance with the observations of Schlachter (2009) for the historical data which are deal with here, a detailed analysis of every single occurrence seems to be the only appropriate one, as does Fischer (2010) and based on Krifka (2008). In the following, a brief review of the essential findings of Krifka (2008) is presented before turning to an analysis of the present data. The occurrences are divided into two groups. First, a selection of the fronted constituents that are not part of the VP are information-structurally analysed. Second, the information-structural properties of fronted constituents of VP are analysed and discussed.
4.2.1 Krifka’s basic notions on information structure
In the present section, Krifka’s (2008) observations on information structure are summarized by emphasising the points that are of use for the subsequent analyses. Hence, the present summary concentrates on generally applicable notions and definitions.148
Krifka (2008) assumes that information structure corresponds to the arrangement or packaging of information in compliance with the respective common ground at the point in time when the information is transmitted. Various notions are addressed in this context as, for instance, the distinction between common ground content and management. However, for the present purposes, the examination is limited to the explanation of what Krifka (2008) understands by focus, topics and frame-setting, to the subtypes he identifies and to the links he discerns between the different terms.
With respect to focus, Krifka (2008) derives his idea of focus from alternative notions that are used to describe its effect. He does not consider focus to be a means of highlighting, of representing the most important constituent of the clause, or of reflecting newness. Rather, he takes these ideas to situate his understanding of focus, namely the indication of present alternatives that are relevant for the interpretation of linguistic expressions. According to this conception of focus, the marking of focus or its specific exploitation are language specific and,
148 For the extensive discussion and delimitation of the different notions within different frameworks, please refer to Krifka (2008).
Chapter 4. Analysis 148 hence, may vary crosslinguistically. Thus, Krifka’s (2008: 248) understanding is stated as follows:
(80) A property F of an expression α is a Focus property iff F signals (a) that alternatives of (parts of) the expression α or (b) alternatives of the denotation of (parts of) α are relevant for the interpretation of α.
Accordingly, the alternatives may be alternatives of form (a) or of meaning (b). It holds for both that the set of alternatives can be limited or unrestricted. The interest is exclusively directed on denotation focus here, since it can only be borne by a meaningful unit. Hence, constituents of different sizes can be put into focus, ranging from whole clauses to morphemes, creating the notion of broad and narrow focus. However, this latter differentiation is not relevant to this endeavour. Instead, here are the different uses of focus that Krifka (2008) exemplifies. As he stresses it, the different subtypes of focus vary in the way in which the presence of alternatives is conceived. The basic variant corresponds to what is elsewhere also called presentational or information focus, which also allows to accommodate the meaning of covert questions, i.e. it highlights the alternative of an answer to a question that was not overtly expressed before. Krifka (2008) notes that focus is furthermore used to correct or to confirm information, to highlight parallels, to delimit the utterance to the constituent in focus, or to compare between the denotation of the focus constituent and the denotation of its alternatives. He distinguishes the following specific uses of focus (Krifka 2008: 257-259):
− verum focus;
− complex focus as a combination of foci;
− multiple focus: where in one and the same sentence various alternatives are introduced and exploited in different ways;
− exhaustive focus as the only or the logically strongest alternative that leads to a true proposition;
− scalar or emphatic focus: where the denotation focus corresponds either to the least or to the greatest element of a set of somehow ordered alternatives;
Chapter 4. Analysis 149
− contrastive focus on condition that a proposition with which the current utterance can be contrasted is present in the common ground or can be accommodated.
With respect to the forthcoming analysis, it is retained that the presence of alternatives is the most prominent feature of what Krifka (2008) understands by focus. As we can be seen immediately hereinafter, this conception of focus allows to account for intersections of focus with other basic notions of information structure.
With regard to topics, Krifka (2008) refers to Reinhart’s (1981) conception of topic as a means to facilitate the information storage. Accordingly, his definition of topic states that “[t]he topic constituent identifies the entity or the set of entities under which the information expressed in the comment constituent should be stored in the c[ommon] g[round] content” (Krifka 2008: 265). Topic-hood is hence represented as being the head entry of a file-card in a file-card system and directly linked to the observed trend to maintain the topic from one sentence to another. After discussing the possibility of multiple topics and the characteristics of thetic sentences and of quantifiers as topics, Krifka (2008) turns to the peculiarities of contrastive topics. According to him, contrastive topics represent a combination of topic-hood and focus, since they indicate alternative topics. The same influence of focus is observed with frame setters whose function Krifka (2008) defines as setting the frame in which the following expression should be interpreted. He takes frame setters as a means to systematically restrict the context, thus to exclude alternative frames that might have been considered otherwise. Hence, Krifka (2008) assumes explicit frame setters to always be focussed, i.e. to indicate present alternatives. In cases where there is no alternative frame, there is no need of an explicit frame setter, either. In order to assemble the observation that focus can intersect with topics and frame setters likewise, Krifka (2008: 270) introduces the term ‘delimitator’.
(81) A delimitator α in an expression [ … α … βFocus … ] always comes with a focus within α that generates alternatives α’. It indicates that the current informational
needs of the CG are not wholly satisfied by [ … α … βFocus … ], but would be
satisfied by additional expressions of the general form [ … α’ … β’Focus … ].
Contrastive topics and frame setters as delimitators in the sense of (81) thus represent the information-structural split of a complex issue into alternative sub-issues. For instance, contrastive topics are often used as a strategy of incremental answering.
Chapter 4. Analysis 150
In the following analysis of fronted constituents in the presented data, their information- structural value is reconsidered with respect to Krifka’s conception of focus and of its intersection with frame setters and topic constituents, and by following Fischer’s (2010) approach detailed above. This work attempts to verify whether the fronted items in the data display a consistent informational role. If so, the upcoming findings are used as starting point for the subsequent syntactic analysis.
4.2.2 Frame setters and modifiers
For all fronted items that are not acting as verbal complements, five main groups could be identified according to their broad semantic contribution to the sentence. These groups are looked at subsequently. In each subsection examples of the respective categories (adverbs, PP, other) are given. The choice of the examples depended on whether a lucid explanation could be easily provided.
4.2.2.1 Temporal frame
For both, adverbs and PP, the majority of fronted items set a temporal frame, i.e. they delimit the temporal setting of their context. Overall, there are 56 occurrences of temporal frame setting adverbs.149 Consider (82) as an example, where the coordinated adverbs lors et depuis ‘then and since’ set a temporal frame.
(82) […] nous a esté exposé que comme environ la feste de Penthecouste prochaine aura quatre ans eust esté bailliee par ledit Jaquemin […] a Richart de Marueil certaine quantité de florins pour autre menue mon. entre les quels florins en y ost trouvee X qui estoient rongniez Les quels ledit Richart raporta audit Jaquemin et li fist changier a autres florins lequel Jaquemin pour occasion desdis florins rongniez dessusdis fu arresté et detenu prisonnier et yceuls florins rongniez mis en main de justice pour ce que lors et depuis ycellui Jaquemin confessa que il les avoit bailliez audit Richart. (it) has been exposed to us that since around the feast of next Pentecost it will
149 The occurrences are found in the following LDR: 1357,4; 1357,20; 1357,22; 1357,25; 1358,35; 1358,61; 1358,80; 1358,101; 1359,159; 1359,190; 1359,231; 1359,250; 1360,255; 1360,258; 1360,277; 1360,285; 1360,286; 1360,287; 1360,306; 1360,307; 1360,310; 1360,322; 1423,4; 1423,10; 1424,31; 1424,36; 1424,55; 1424,70; 1425,75; 1425,81; 1425,91; 1427,176; 1428,185; 1429,197; 1431,203; 1432,204; 1432,220; 1432,223.
Chapter 4. Analysis 151
be four years that it had been given by the said Jacquemin to Richart de Marueil a certain quantity of florins for another small change. In between these florins there were found 10 that were trimmed. These the said Richart brought to the said Jaquemin and made him change to other florins. The said Jaquemin because of the said trimmed florins above-mentioned was arrested and held as prisoner and these trimmed florins were handed over to justice because then and since this Jacquemin confessed that he them had given to the said Richart. (1357,4)
As for PPs take, for instance, (83) where the fronted PP par avant ‘before’ sets a temporal frame.
(83) Et pour ce nous ont fait supplier que eu consideracion au cas dessusdit tant en ce que ladite navreure fu faite en la chaleur et doleur que avoit ledit Robin des navreures faites par ledit Jehan es personnes de sa mere et frere dessuzdis et aussi que par son mauvaiz gouvernement l’en dit ycellui estre mort et a ce que par avant euls estoient devenuz bons amis ensemble et pardonné chascun l’un a l’autre And for that (they) have made to supplicate that considering the above- mentioned case both that the said injury was made in the heat and the pain that the said Robin had because of the injuries made by the said Jehan to the above said persons of his mother and brother as well as due to the bad treatment one says that he has died as well as since before they had become good friends together and had forgiven each other (1357, 20)
Altogether, there are 56 occurrences in the overall data with fronted PP that set a temporal frame.150 However, there are also a few NP such as landemain ‘tomorrow’ in (84) that delimit the time context of the embedded clause in question.151
150 They are found in the following LDR: 1357,20; 1357,35; 1358,43; 1358,61; 1358,70; 1358,80; 1358,101; 1358,112; 1359,131; 1359,159; 1359,166; 1359,179; 1359,190; 1359, 212; 1359,231; 1360,303; 1360,320; 1423,4; 1423,5; 1423,22; 1424,36; 1424,49; 1424,63; 1424,70; 1425,77; 1425,91; 1427,161; 1427,173; 1427,176; 1428,178**; 1428,185; 1432,204; 1432,207; 1432,211; 1433,225; 1433,229. 151 There are four occurrences altogether, which were found in the following LDR: 1357,20; 1360,287; 1424,70; 1433,225.
Chapter 4. Analysis 152
(84) […] Et depuiz ledit acort, ledit Grison […] se fust fait saignier du bras si que landemain de ladite saigniee qui fu le XXe jour aprés ladite navreure yceli est alez de vie a trespassement And since the said accord, the said Grison […] himself was made to bleed at his arm so that following day of the said bleeding wound which was the 20th day after the said injury this one has gone from life to death (1357,20)
4.2.2.2 Delimiting cause
In LDR 1357,20, another type of a PP frame setter can be found: pour ce ‘for that’ in (85).
(85) […] nous leur voulsissons sur ce faire grace et remettre et pardonner toute peine criminele et civile que pour ce pourroient en aucune maniere avoir et estre encourus. […] we should have mercy on them and abrogate and forgive any criminal punishment that for this (they) could in any way have and be undergone (1357,20)
In this data, PPs setting a causal frame were also introduced by prepositions other than pour, namely par, de, and larger constructions implying a preposition and a noun expressing cause such as, for instance, a cause de. Overall, there are 37 PPs that set a causal frame.152 However, a clausal frame is not expressed by other categories.
4.2.2.3 Passive agents
Par is also used as another type of delimitator in the sense of Krifka (2008), namely in passive constructions where the agent is overtly expressed as in (86) par le rapport des mires ‘by the report of the surgeons’.
(86) Que de la partie de Jehan fouace nous a esté exposé que comme Robin Dorentot meu de male volenté senz cause raisonnable envers ledit Jehan fust venu en la maison d’icellui ou il estoit paisiblement Et senz li deffier l’eust pris jeté and
152 The occurrences are found in the following LDR: 1357,5; 1357,9; 1357,20; 1357,25; 1357,22; 1358,43; 1358,61; 1359,159; 1359,166; 1359,177; 1359,190; 1359,231; 1359,252; 1360,255; 1360,302; 1360,310; 1423,5; 1423,22; 1424,25; 1424,43; 1424,49; 1424,56; 1425,75; 1425,89;1425,91; 1427,176; 1428,178**; 1432,205; 1432,207; 1432,211; 1432,218; 1433,229.
Chapter 4. Analysis 153
acablé a terre batu and villené moult villainement, Neantmoins ledit Jehan soy veiant ainsi batu and villené par le dit Robin comme dit est and pour doubte de mort prist un coutel que le dit Robin portoit and en jeta a li par maniere de deffense sicomme il lui loisoit a faire and l’attaint ou ventre and navra Pour le quel fait Il fu pris and mis es prisons de nostre treschier et amé cousin le Conte de Eu and puis delivrés par recreance Depuis la quelle Il a esté pris and miz en noz prisons a monsterviller and encores est Pour ce que par le rapport des mires a esté rapporté aus chevaliers que […] that of the part of Jehan Fouace (it) has been exposed to us that as Robin Dorentot moved by bad intention without a reasonable cause had come to the said Jehan in the house of him where he stayed peacefully. And without premonition (he) had taken, thrown and overwhelmed him to the floor and mistreated him badly, however the said Jehan seeing himself beaten and mistreated in that way by the said Robin as was said and in fear of death took a knife that the said Robin carried and threw it against him in a defensive manner as it was advisable for him to do and hurt him at the waist and injured him because of this he was taken and put in the prisons of our beloved cousin the count of Eu and then suspended temporarily and freed and since then he had been taken and put in our prison in Monsterviller and still is because by the report of the surgeons (it) has been exposed to the knights that […] (1357,1)
There are many occurrences combining this type of frame setting with a null expletive as it is the case in (86). Overall, 20 instances of passive constructions were found where the agent is overtly expressed and fronted.153
4.2.2.4 Spatial frame
In comparison to the frequency of temporal frame setters discussed in 4.2.2.1, spatial frame setters are relatively uncommon. Overall, the majority of the occurrences is found in relative clauses. There are only 12 occurrences of fronted PPs154, as in (87) d’illec ‘of there’.
153 The occurrences are found in the following LDR: 1357,1; 1357,20; 1357,25; 1357,35; 1358,80; 1359,131; 1359,166; 1359,179; 1359,231; 1359,250; 1360,286; 1360,287; 1360,306; 1424,25; 1424,43; 1424,56; 1425,77; 1425,91; 1429,197; 1433,229. 154 The occurrences are found in the following LDR: 1357,20; 1358,80;1359,166; 1360,322; 1425,75; 1427,173; 1429,197; 1431,203; 1432,211.
Chapter 4. Analysis 154
(87) ledit suppliant […] qui bonnement d’illec ne povoit eschapper sanz mort
the said supplicant who satisfactorily of there NEG could escape without death (1360,322)
The same is true for adverbs, where only three occurrences of fronted adverbs were found that set a spatial frame.155 As an example consider là ‘there’ that sets the frame of the corresponding relative clause in (88).
(88) en la presence dudit suppliant, qui là estoit venu par la maniere que dit est sans aucun mal penser in the presence of the said supplicant, who had come there in the way that was said without thinking anything bad (1424,53)
Note that Carlier and Sarda (2010) point out that the distinction between argument and adjunct is not unequivocal for spatial constituents, thus entailing the question whether là could be analysed as an argument of venir. Within the present information-structural analysis, however, the status of the fronted adverb can unambiguously be analysed as a spatial frame setter.
4.2.2.5 Manner
For both categories there were occurrences that could be subsumed under the label manner. With respect to PPs, these occurrences are proportionally infrequent since 13 PPs express manner as in (89) de grant hautesse et oulte cuidance ‘full of haughtiness and self- importance’.156
(89) ledit Perrotin ; lequel de grant hautesse et oultre cuidance dist que ladite lettre estoit faulse the said Perrotin who with big haughtiness and self-importance said that the said letter was forged (1357,35)
Manner PPs are generally not addressed as frame setters in the relevant literature but rather, in conjunction with manner adverbs, as bearing a modifier function (Cinque 2004, Rizzi 2004b, among others, for a different analysis see Frey 2000, 2003). However, this reasoning comes
155 These occurrences are found in the following LDR: 1360,310; 1423,4; 1423,53. 156 The occurrences are found in the following LDR: 1357,35; 1358,101; 1360,255; 1360,303; 1424,49; 1424,56; 1425,81; 1427,168; 1427,178*; 1429,197; 1431,203; 1432,207; 1433,229.
Chapter 4. Analysis 155 from a syntactical point view and not from an information-structural one. The question is whether manner PPs or adverbs can be analysed as frame setters in the sense of Krifka (2008), i.e. by yielding an information-structural split of a complex issue into alternative sub-issues. One could argue that de grant hautesse et oulte cuidance in (89) delimits the manner of how Perrotin acts within a set of other possible alternatives. Hence, for the moment, the group of manner frame setters is kept and the matter is taken up again in the syntactical analysis.
With respect to adverbs, overall, there are 26 occurrences that delimit manner. A first group are occurrences as in (90) where the fronted adverb corresponds to si ‘so’ or a variant of si.157
(90) […] pluseurs […] distrent a ycellui exposant qu’il li pleust a aidier a faire rendre ycelle jument ou cheval a cellui a qui elle estoit aus quiex le dit exposant […] respondi que si feroit il volentiers several said to this requester that it should please to him to help to make return this mare or horse to the one to whom she was to those the said requester answered that so would do he with pleasure (1360,306)
Furthermore, there are other fronted adverbs expressing manner as in (91) appertement ‘adroitly’, altogether 9.158
(91) Si advint que pluseurs des habitans de la ville de Gloz […] apperceurent deux personnes a cheval qui app(er)tement chevauchoient sur le dit pais So (it) happened that several of.the inhabitants of the town of Gloz […] perceived two persons on horseback who adroitly rode across the said country. (1359,166)
Finally, adverbs of negation were considered to form a special subgroup of manner adverbs. Out of the 26 occurrences of manner adverbs, 12 correspond to fronted negation adverbs such as bonnement ‘satisfactorily’, pas and point.159 For the latter two, the Dictionnaire du Moyen Français gives the definition of en quelque manière ‘in some manner’. The presence of manner
157 These occurrences are found in the following LDR: 1360,306; 1424,36; 1425,89; 1425,91; 1427,168; 1427,176. 158 The occurrences can be found in the following LDR: 1358,80; 1359,166; 1359,252; 1423,19; 1424,63; 1425,75; 1427,168. 159 The occurrences were found in LDRs 1357,25; 1359,121; 1359,252; 1360,255; 1360,285; 1360,322; 1424,25; 1424,43; 1432,211.
Chapter 4. Analysis 156 in the corresponding definitions led to the subsumption of negation adverbs with manner adverbs. All fronted negation adverbs were used in combination with the negation marker ne, consider (92), for an example with fronted bonnement.
(92) […] il avoit certain. quantité de genz d’armes et sergens en ladite ville pour la garde et deffense d’icelle et du pais aus coux et fraiz de ladite ville qui bonnement ne povoient estre paiez de leurs gages there were certain quantity of men-at-arms and sergeants in the said town for the guard and defense of this and of the region at the expense and cost of the
said town who satisfactorily NEG could be paid of their wages(1357,25)
This work does not join the exhaustive debate on the evolution of negation in French discussed under the light of Jespersen’s cycle (Jespersen 1917; for a survey of the debate, consider, for instance, Rowlett 1998, Eckardt 2006 and Larrivée 2010, among others). However, the observation that in the presented data bonnement before and after the verb is exclusively used in combination with ne justifies the particular discussion of negative adverbs and leads to the assumption that bonnement can be considered to be on the way of demotivation from a manner adverb to a pure negation adverb. Bearing Krifka’s (2008) idea of an intersection of frame setters and focus constituents in mind, it needs to be checked whether occurrences with fronted negative adverbs are to be analysed as pure frame setters or as fronted constituents with a focus reading.
4.2.2.6 Sentence adverbs
Finally, there were six occurrences of adverbs that could not be added to one of the above discussed groups: autrement ‘otherwise’, bien ‘indeed’ (twice), certainement, ‘certainly’ and pareillement ‘likewise’ (twice).160 All are instances of “higher” or sentence adverbs in the sense of Cinque (1997). Consider, for instance, (93) where autrement ‘differently’ is not used as a manner adverb but rather in its second sense ‘otherwise’.
(93) Nous consider[ons] […] que autrement le dit Jehan a esté touz jours homme de bonne fame
160 The occurrences were found in LDR 1359,177; 1359,231; 1360,322; 1423,4; 1424,70; 1427,176.
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We consider that otherwise the said Jehan has been all days (a) man of good fame (1359,177)
These occurrences are taken up again in the following section when dealing with fronted constituents and a possible focus reading.
4.2.2.7 Summary
Overall, the fronted PPs and adverbs that are not arguments of the verb could be grouped into different groups of frame setters. The majority of the fronted items delimits the temporal frame of the sentence and includes PPs, adverbs, and NPs. Cause and agentivity is only expressed by fronted PPs, while frames of manner or space are set by both, adverbs and PPs. Finally, there were six further occurrences that could not be attached to one of the above-mentioned groups, namely an adverb syntactically used as sentence adverb in the sense of Cinque (1997). The occurrences corresponding to frame setters are distributed across all three different types of embedded clauses, with balanced proportions, except for spatial frame setters which were mainly found in relative clauses.
4.2.3 Topics
Among the fronted constituents of VP there are 25 occurrences that can be identified as topics: 12 fronted PP complements161, 10 fronted DP complements162, and three fronted infinitives163. Except for five cases, all occurrences are found in embedded contexts other than relative or comparative clauses.
With respect to fronted PP complements, 9 PPs are composed of one of the prepositions de ‘of, by’, sur ‘on, about’ or a ‘at, to’, and of the demonstrative pronoun ce ‘this’. Consider, for instance, the following example in (94) with the fronted PP de ce ‘about it’.
(94) Pendant le temps duquel debat survint ylec une femme nommée Marion, […] laquele […] disoit et dist lors que il et ung autre paige, son complice, lui avoient prins, tolu et emporté de force certains ses biens, et entre autres choses y avoit
161 The occurrences are found in the following LDR: 1357,4; 1357,9; 1358,101; 1359,61; 1359,131; 1359,252; 1360,322; 1423,5; 1424,36; 1424,56; 1432,204; 1432,218. 162 The occurrences are found in the following LDR: 1357,22; 1358,101; 1359,190; 1359,250; 1424,56; 1428,183; 1432,218; 1432,220. 163 The occurrences are found in the following LDR: 1359,190 and 1359,231.
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ung sac que ledit Richart avoit en sa possession. […] et mesmement pour ce que de ce icele Marion se doulousoit moult, icelui suppliant lui dist qu'elle se appaisast et teust During the time of this debate appeared there a woman called Marion […] who […] said and has said then that he and another page, his accomplice had taken, removed and carried away some of her belongings and among other things there was a bag that the said Richart had in his possession. […] and in particularly because about this, this Marion grieved a lot, this supplicant said to her that she should calm down and keep quiet (1432,204)
Here ce refers to the loss of the belongings, Marion is sorry about. Hence, de ce can be analysed as an aboutness topic constituent, i.e. in Krifka’s terms as representing the head entry of the corresponding embedded clause pour ce que de ce icele Marion se doulousoit moult. However, while all the other fronted PP topics are found in embedded contexts other than relative contexts, there are two occurrences of fronted PP within a subject relative clause which can be interpreted as topics. Consider (95) as a first example:
(95) audit mess. Jehan Paienel et a touz autres qui en sa compaignie furent a la prinse et occupacion dudit chastel et a tout ce qui s’en est ensui maismement et qui a ce donnerent conseil confort et aide to the said sir Jehan Paienel and to all others who in his company were at the conquest and occupation of the said castle and at all that ensued likewise and who at this gave advice, assistance, and help (1358,61)
Here ce refers to the conquest and occupation of the castle. The parallel between fronted de ce in (94) and a ce in (95) appears to be stringent. The same seems to hold for the second occurrence of a fronted PP topic within a subject relative clause in (96) where the fronted de ce ‘about this’ appears to fit the definition of a topic constituent as well as (94) does.
(96) Lequel suppliant dist audit Pinchart, son cousin, les choses dessusdictes, qui de ce fut desplaisant This supplicant said to the said Pinchart, his cousin, the above-said things, who about this was distressed (1423,5)
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Now, the three occurrences of fronted PP topics with full DPs as the complement of the preposition are looked at. All three do imply neither a relative nor a comparative clause context.164 The fronted element is either given in the immediate discourse context as ledit fait ‘ the said act’ preceding dudit fait ‘of the said act’ in (97), or accessible as in (98) where dudit homme occis ‘the said killed man’ renders de la mort d’icellui ‘of the death of this one’ accessible to the reader.
(97) ledit Gautier […] confessast ledit fait en descoulpant ses dites suers et preist sur l’ame de li que dudit fait elles ne savoient riens the said Gautier confessed the said act by exculpating his said sisters and assured on his soul that of the said act they did not know anything. (1358,101)
(98) disans que ce ilz faisoient par ce que eulx ou l’un d'eulx estoient parens et affins dudit homme occis et que de la mort d'icellui ledit Guillaume estoit coulpable. saying that this they made because they or one of them were a relative of the said killed man and that of the death of this one the said Guillaume was guilty (1424,56)
There are three fronted topic constituents that correspond to an infinitive. The first is given in (99).
(99) ledit capitaine […] li commenda que il li feist faire deux chevilles de fer […] Lequel Colin […] afin d’issir a sauveté de la dite prison et du dit fort li [convenença] que il li feroit faire les dites deux chevilles et par ce s’en tourna et repaira a la dite ville de Legle ou il fu par l’espace de trois sepmaines ou plus senz ce que des dites chevilles faire faire s’entremist ne ne vousist entremettre en aucune manere the said captain ordered to him that he had two iron dowels made for him […] This Colin […] in order to leave safely the said prison and the said fort promised him that he would have him the said two dowels made and after that he returned and went to the said town of L’Aigle where he was for the time of three weeks or more without starting to have the said dowel made nor he did not want to start in any way.’(1359,190)
164 The occurrences can be found in the following LDR: 1357,4; 1358,101; 1424,56.
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Here, the fronted item is the entire VP des dites chevilles faire faire ‘to have the said dowel made’. Its internal word order appears not to be habitual insofar as the object of the infinite is the leftmost element of the whole constituents with two infinitives to its right. This order – observed by other authors in Medieval French fronting constructions (Salvesen 2011, 2013; Labelle and Hirschbühler in press) – is not discussed in the present section but in the syntactical analysis. Instead, a closer look at (99) as a whole shows that twice before, the whole sequence is found with a canonical internal order, namely feist faire deux chevilles de fer ‘had two iron dowels made’ and feroit faire les dites deux chevilles ‘would have the said two dowels made’. Hence, the whole sequence is given and, from Krifka’s (2008) point of view, the fronted infinitive construction can only be analysed as constituting the head entry of the corresponding embedded clause and, so, taken to be the topic constituent.
The two fronted infinitives that correspond to a topic constituent are found in (100), namely a ce faire ‘at this to.do’ and consenter ‘consent’. It was chosen to give a complete picture of the context, hence the length of the sequence in (100).
(100) le dit Jouen vint a elle et la tempta derrechief comme elle se voulsist consentir a ce que il meist a mort le dit feu Colin son mari. A la quelle chose elle estans encores plaine de duel et de courous de ce que le dit feu son mari li faisoit souffrir et estans encores en la chaleur de ce se fust absentue a l’inducion du dit Jouen […] et en apres comme elle se fust advisee comme ce seroit mal fait de faire que son dit mari receust mort fust tres dolente et repentante de ce que elle s’estoit a ce consentue. Et pour ce, le plus tost que elle pout, parla audit Jouen secretement a part en lui monstrant comme ce seroit mal fait de mettre a mort le dit feu son mari. Et en le requerant que a ce faire ne voulsist penser en aucune maniere et que consentir ne le pourroit The said Jouen came to her and tempted her again that she would want to consent to him killing the said deceased Colin her husband. At that thing she still being full of pain and anger about what the said deceased her husband made her suffer and still being in the heat about it, she consented to the instigation of the said Jouen […] and after that she had noticed that it would be a bad thing to do that her said husband should get killed, (she) was very distressed and repentant about the fact that she had consented to that. And because of that, as soon as she could, (she) spoke to the said Jouen secretly and
Chapter 4. Analysis 161
separately showing him that it would be a bad thing to kill the said defunct her
husband. And in requesting him that to this (he) do NEG think of in any way
and that consent (she) NEG him could (1359,231)
As can be seen in (100), the plan to kill the husband, which the first infinitive a ce faire refers to, and the woman’s consent to this plan, i.e. the second infinitive consentir, have both been addressed previously to the fronting of the two infinitives. Hence, both infinitives can be taken to be given. With Krifka (2008), one can analyse the fronted infinitives as bearing topic reading and as introducing the head entries to the modal predicates of the corresponding embedded clause, which themselves yield a contrast to the previous consent of the woman. One has to note likewise that the object pronoun le ‘him’ in the second fronting context is not the neutral variant here, hence, it is not a case of clitic left dislocation.165
With respect to the fronted DP topic occurrences, the analysis of the two occurrences in relative clauses are postponed to the end of the present chapter. For the others, except in one case, the relative word order within the embedded clause is as follows: ‘fronted DP – subject pronoun – finite verb’. All clauses with fronted DP topics contain a subject pronoun. All fronted DP topics are full DPs except one demonstrative pronoun, and none of them is doubled by a pronominal within the clause. Regarding the nature of the embedded clause, all but one occurrence take place in complement clauses of the verb dire ‘say’ (101) or of performative verbs of command as in (102) below.166
(101) Auquel frere il demanda se il avoit point eu ses cuirasses ; qui lui respondi que non. Et lors dist audit Jehannin qu'il dist a Jehan le Touaillier, son pere, que sesdictes cuirasses, qui estoient a Gournay, il voulsist fere porter audit lieu de Ferieres, en l'ostel dudit Jehannin. To this brother he asked whether he had not had his cuirasses; who answered to him that no. And then (he) said to the said Jehannin that he said to Jehan le Touaillier, his father, that his said cuirasses, which belonged to Gournay, he
165 Compare the entry in the Dictionnaire du Moyen Français, consentir (à) qn, http://atilf.atilf.fr/scripts/dmfX.exe?LEM=consentir;XMODE=STELLa;FERMER;;AFFICHAGE=0;MENU= menu_dmf;;ISIS=isis_dmf2012.txt;OUVRIR_MENU=2;OO1=-1;s=s0c280b08;LANGUE=FR;, 8th February 2016, 14:45. 166 The occurrences where found in the LDR: 1357,22; 1358,101; 1359,250; 1424,56; 1428,183; 1432,218; 1432,220.
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should make (them) bring them to the said place of Ferieres, at the mansion of the said Jehannin. (1432,218)
In (101) the fronted topic constituent corresponds to sesdictes cuirasses ‘his said cuirasses’. Sesdictes cuirasses is activated in the previous discourse by the preceding conversation. Within the complement clause, the fronted sesdictes cuirasses can thus be analysed as topic constituent in the sense of Krifka (2008).
In (102) the fronted topic constituent corresponds to icele jeune femme ‘this young woman’.
(102) une jeune femme se feust venue plaindre audit capitaine que un de ses gens, nommé Jehannequin Regnault, anglois, vouloit emmener icele jeune femme par force, requerant a icelui capitaine que il lui voulsist mettre remede. Par quoy icelui capitaine eust commandé audit Bourreley et a aucuns autres ses serviteurs que ilz alassent par devers ledit Jehannequin Regnault et qu'ilz le contraignissent de laissier ladicte femme. Pour quoy ledit Bourreley lui eust fait commandement de par sondit maistre que icele jeune femme il laissast aler sans lui fere mal ne oppression A young woman had come to complain to the said captain that one of his people called Jehannequin Regnault, English, wanted to take this young woman away by force, requesting of this captain that he should give her remedy. Whereupon this captain had commanded the said Bourreley and some others of his servants to go to the said Jehannequin Regnault and to force him to let go the said woman. Therefore the said Bourreley him had commanded by proxy of his said master that this young woman he should let go without doing her harm nor oppression (1428,183)
The reasoning for the topic-hood of icele jeune femme is similar to the one for (101) above. The constituent is activated in the previous discourse and, thus, semantically given to the reader of the LDR, even the content of the whole order given in the corresponding complement clause by the preceding subordinate clause qu'ilz le contraignissent de laissier ladicte femme. Hence, the function of icele jeune femme corresponds to Krifka’s (2008) conception of topics as head entries.
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Consider (103) as another example of a fronted DP topic constituent. It is the only occurrence found in a comparative clause.
(103) le dit Guillaume qui lors estoit fermier et amoisonneur des dismes appartenans a l’abbé et couvent de Saincte Katerine lez Rouez en la parroisse d’Ausonville fust alé en certains champs de la dicte parroisse pour veoir et visiter les dites dismes et pour savoir comment l’en poieroit icelles dismes en la dite ville et parroisse et entres les autres il eust sceu et apparçeu que un homme appellé Pierre Herent avoit mains souffiseument paié les dismes de ses blés et avoit moult deffraudé la dite disme et pour ce se feust traiz par devers le dit Pierre pour l’aviser de ce et pour recouvrer le seurplus qui se failloit de la dite disme. Si li dist teles paroles ou semblables « apaine seroit loyaulx homs envers personne mondeine quant envers Dieu fais telle disloyauté que les dismes qui sont a Dieu et par lui ordenez et qui sont une obligation qui lui est deue tu paies si mauvaisement »
the said Guillaume who then was a farmer and tenant of the tithes belonging to the abbot and the convent of Saincte Katerine lez Rouez in the parish of Ausonville had gone to some fields of the said parish to see and examine the said tithes and to know how one would pay these tithes in the said town and parish and among other things he had known and noticed that a man called Pierre Herent had less sufficiently paid the tithes of his wheat and had very much defrauded the said tithe and because of that (he) had gone to the said Pierre to inform him of it and to recover the surplus which was lacking of the said tithe. So (he) said to him such word or similar (ones): “(you) hardly would be a loyal man towards a mundane person when towards God you make such a disloyalty that the tithes which belong to God and are ordered by him and which are an obligation which him is owed you pay so badly.” (1359,250)
(103) is special in various respects. First, the fronted DP les dismes qui sont a Dieu et par lui ordenez et qui sont une obligation qui lui est deue ‘the tithes which belong to God and are ordered by him and which are an obligation which him is owed’ is the largest fronted constituent in number that were found in this data and, as all the other instances of DP topic constituents, it lacks a doubling by a coreferential pronoun. Second, it is the only occurrence of fronting in direct speech and the only one implying a subject corresponding to a second person singular
Chapter 4. Analysis 164 pronoun. Finally, it is the only occurrence of topic constituent found in a comparative clause. Within this whole context, the topic-hood of les dimes is generated in parallel to the other topic constituents that have been discussed before. Les dimes are not only activated several times in the discourse preceding the direct speech part but are also accessible within this very part. On the one hand, the speaker is the tenant of the tithes of the region and, on the other hand, the payment of the tithes was justified by reference to the Bible (Puza 2003) and, hence, is semantically linked to Dieu ‘God’. As a result, les dimes can be analysed as topic constituent in the sense of Krifka (2008).
Finally, the two fronted DP topics in a relative context are addressed. Both derive from LDR 1359,190, where one of the fronted infinitive constructions was found, too. In both cases the fronted DP corresponds to les dites chevilles ‘the said dowels’, which were also part of the fronted infinitive construction discussed in (99). Consider (104) and (105) for the present examples.
(104) le dit capitaine qui les dites chevilles n’avoit pas oubliees re[menda] au dit Colin que tantost et sanz delay il li envoiast les dites chevilles
The said captain who the said dowels NEG had not forgotten ordered the said Colin to send him immediately and without any delay the said dowels (1359,190)
(105) Et si tost comme la premiere fu faite les gens d’armes et autres estanz ou fort de la dite ville firent mettre le fevre qui la dite cheville avoit faite en prison fermee. And as soon as the first was made, the men-at-arms and others being at the fort of the said town put the forger who the said dowel has made to locked prison (1359,190)
As illustrated by the use of the preceding dite(s) ‘said’, the fronted elements are given in both cases and remain active in the discourse. Consequently, both DPs correspond to Krifka’s (2008) conception of topics and, thus, should be analysed as topic constituents. Note that within relative clauses these are the only frontings bearing a topic reading. Since LDR 1359,190 is the only letter written by the scribe in question, one could debate whether the availability of topic constituents in relative clauses is restricted to this scribe.
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To sum up, there are occurrences with fronted items bearing a topic reading. Only one-fifth of the occurrences are found in relative or comparative clauses, i.e. 80% of the occurrences are found in other subordinate contexts.
4.2.4 Foci
As intermediate results the majority of the occurrences discussed up to now are either fronted PPs, adverbs, or DPs that were interpreted either as behaving as a frame setter or as bearing topic-hood. Overall, there are only few occurrences of a fronted non-finite verb forms that were analysed as being the topic constituent of the corresponding embedded clause. When turning now to fronted items that bear a denotation focus, non-finite verb forms are in the focus of our interest. Recall that Krifka (2008) defines the scope of linguistic focus by the indication of existent alternatives that are relevant for the interpretation of linguistic expressions (cf. (80)).
4.2.4.1 Basic information focus
As shown above, Krifka (2008) understands the basic variant of focus as a means to allow the accommodation of the meaning of (covert) questions, i.e. it highlights the alternative of an answer to a question (that was not overtly expressed before). Consider (106) as an example of the basic information or presentational focus taken from this data.
(106) Et ainsi qu'il y entroit, trouva Alain Mercher, dit Baron, qui demanda audit la Chose qui lui avoit fait ce qu'il avoit ou visage. Lequel la Chose respondi que ce avoit fait ledit Pierre le Noir. and as he came in, (he) encountered Alain Mercher, called Baron, who asked the said la Chose who made him what he had at the face. This la Chose answered that this had made the said Pierre le Noir. (1432,220)
The answer to the overt indirect question qui lui avoit fait ce qu'il avoit ou visage is ce avoit fait ledit Pierre le Noir. Hence, the constituent in focus in the answer is the postverbal subject ledit Pierre le Noir. The fronted constituent is part of the background of the sentence and can be interpreted as topic constituent at the same time. As we have seen in the section on the left periphery, Modern French does not allow focus fronting of objects and makes use of cleft constructions in order to obtain a focus reading. The same is true for subjects (Katz 2000, Lambrecht 2010).
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Recall that according to Ledgeway (2012) fronted information focus should not be expected in embedded contexts. However, in this data, there are two occurrences with a reading that probably corresponds to the basic focus variant. Consider the following example (107) with the fronted infinitive soustenir ‘sustain upright’.
(107) nous a esté exposé que comme il et ses compaignons ordenez a faire l’arriere guet de nuit sur les murs de nostredite ville environ le mardi avant Noel darrain passé feussent alez en leur garde la ou il avoit pluseurs personne entre les quels estoit feu Thiebaut Go[nn]ee si yvre que soustenir ne se povoit (it) has been exposed to us that since he and his companions ordered to be on night watch on the walls of our said town around Tuesday before past Christmas (they) had gone during to their watch to a place where several persons were among whom was defunct Thiebaut Gonnee so drunken that
sustain NEG REFL could (1359,121)
The sequence given here corresponds to the beginning of the corresponding LDR as illustrated by the introducing collocation. So, the complex subordinated depending from this introduction is all-new, i.e. thetic or ‘all-focus’ in the sense of Lambrecht (1996) and Erteschik-Shir (1997). Hence, if the fronted infinitive generates an information-structural effect, it only can be a focus. A translation yielding a verum focus reading seems possible, although there is no direct antecedent of the fronted item: one might imagine an implicit contrast between the state yvre ‘drunken’ and the infinitive soustenir ‘sustain upright’ and, thus, the former might activate the latter. However, this approach is somehow remote. The simplest way would be to take fronted soustenir as an instance of foregrounding within the basic information focus of the whole complex subordinate sentence, a kind of secondary focus.
In the same LDR, there is another fronted item whose information-structural value appears to be similar to the one of soustenir. Consider the sequel of (107) given in (108) with the fronted participle cheue ‘fallen, dropped’.
(108) … et oultrageux de paroles injurieuses et villaines dire a chascun estant lors sur les diz murs. Et pour ce li eust esté dit du dit arriere guet que pas n’estoit en estat de veillier veu l’estat de lui. Et escliçant et mal aler qu’il faisoit par dessus les diz murs pour la pluie qui cheue estoit le dit jour et qu’il s’en alast et envoiast un autre homme pour lui.
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and (he was so) outrageous to say injurious and indecent words to everyone being then on the said walls. And because of that (it) has been said to him by
the said guard that (he) not NEG.was in the state to keep watch in view of his condition. And slippery and badly passable as it was on the said walls because
of the rain RCI fallen had the said day and that he should leave and send another man for him. (1359,121 )
As well as for soustenir, there is no direct antecedent of cheue. A contrastive reading is implausible: the whole constituent including the relative clause is new and corresponds to a causal frame setter PP. Yet the relative head la pluie ‘the rain’ together with cheue could be regarded as a weather paraphrase combining a light verb and a weather noun in the sense of Bleotu (2013) and, thus, yielding an activation of cheue. Therefore, a translation yielding a verum focus reading appears to be possible but likewise remote as for soustenir. So, again it is considered to be an instance of secondary focus with the causal frame setter PP. In summary, (107) and (108) are the only examples of fronted infinite verb forms featuring such an information-structural reading. Furthermore, LDR 1359,121 is the only letter written by the scribe in question. Therefore, (107) and (108) could be regarded as variants used exclusively by this particular scribe.
Recall that Krifka (2008) points out further uses of focus: comparison, confirmation, contrast, correction, delimitation, emphatic or exhaustive focus, highlighting of parallels, or verum focus. When reconsidering the above discussed examples of sentence adverbs for some cases, contrast and the two latter types of focus come to mind. First examples of contrastive focus and focus that highlight parallels in this data are discussed before turning to instances of verum focus.
4.2.4.2 Focus: contrast and parallels
With respect to contrast, the following example in (109) resembles the example that was given above in (12) to illustrate the presence of contrast focus constituent within the left periphery retaken here as (110).
(109) Et quant vit le dit Loys que autre chose ne li trairoit de la bouche que ce que dit est …
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And when the said Loys saw that other thing NEG would get out of his mouth than what is said (1359,190)
(110) Autre chose ne pot li roi trouver
other thing not could the king find.INF ‘The king could not find anything else.’ (Mort le Roi Artu, 79.24)
Autre chose in (109) is overtly contrasted to ce que dit est and thus bears the same contrastive focus reading as in (110). The fronted constituent in (109) is the only overt contrast focus in this data. Moreover, there is one occurrence of a fronted participle that might also yield a contrastive reading. The corresponding example is given in (111).
(111) Si donnons en mandement a nostre viconte de Monstervillier […] que […] leurs corps et biens […] leurs mettent ou facent mectre a plaine delivrance senz delay en ostant du tout la main qui mise a esté esdis biens So (we) command our viscount of Monstervillier […] that (they) deliver or lead to deliver their bodies and goods without delay and by removing completely the hand which put has been on the said goods.(1357,4)
Here, the fronted participle mise ‘put, placed’ is contrasted to the preceding gerund, namely ostant ‘removing’. The occurrence given here is the only occurrence of a fronted contrastively focussed participle in this data. It needs to be mentioned that the occurrence was not found in the narration part of the corresponding LDR but in the injonctio part. However, one might also analyse it as bearing a verum focus reading, if one assumes that someone took possession of the goods of the supplicant and the authorities knew about that.
For a possible focus that highlights parallels, consider (112) below, where the fronted adverb pareillement ‘likewise’ insists on the mutual insobriety of the two protagonists.
(112) Et eulx estant audit huis, icelui Cousturier, qui estoit chargié de vin, dist a icelui suppliant, qui pareillement avoit fort beu, telz motz : « N'entre point en ma maison, je renie Dieu, se tu y entres, je te fendray la teste de ceste hache que je tiens ! » And when they arrived at the door, this Cousturier, who was drunk of wine, said to this supplicant, who likewise had drunk much, such words: “Do not
Chapter 4. Analysis 169
enter my house, I renounce God, if you come in, I will split your head with this axe that I hold!” (1427, 176)
Here the fronting of pareillement may suggest the use of focus in order to highlight the parallel physiological state of the protagonists. However, it is difficult to determine if the fronting of pareillement indeed yields a focus reading in this sense, since the adverb itself denotes the idea of parallelism. In sum, there are three occurrences of pareillement within an embedded clause: in two cases, the adverb precedes the finite verb, in one case, it does not. 167
Another case of a possible highlighting parallels focus is found in (113).
(113) Et ce sachant ledit du Pont et voyant que la femme d’icellui suppliant estoit fort embesoingnée pour appareiller a souper aux autres prisonniers[…] dist a icelle femme qu’elle lui donnast congié d'aler aux chambres aisées […] Laquelle femme, cuidant que ainsi feust, debonnairement lui dit qu’il y alast, et sans penser au mauvais propos ne voulenté dudit du Pont, entendit a faire sa besoingne et a servir les autres et leur administrer ce que besoing leur estoit And as the said du Pont knew that and saw that the wife of this supplicant was very busy with preparing the supper for the other prisoners, he said to this woman that she should give him leave to go to the toilet […] This woman thinking that this was [his reason], kindly said to him that he could go there, and without thinking of a bad intention nor will of the said du Pont, [she] centred her attention on doing her work and on serving the others and on administer to them what necessary them was. (1424,36)
At first sight, the information-structural motivation appears to be obscure. The fronted item seems to be activated by the preceding instance of besoingne. Yet, as can be seen in the translations, the meaning of the two differs (‘work of the woman’ vs. ‘need of the prisoners’). Rather, the use of besoing/besoingne could be conceived as a means to outline that the ‘work’ and ‘need’ are linked, since the woman’s work consists of responding to the demands of the prisoners. If one follows that line of thinking, the fronting of besoing could then be taken as a focus in order to highlight this interrelation.
167 The second occurrence implying fronting is found in LDR 1424,70, the one without in LDR 1424,53.
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4.2.4.3 Verum focus
Before discussing whether there are fronted occurrences that have a verum focus reading, recall briefly the essential properties of this type of focus. According to Höhle (1992), the semantics of verum focus correspond to those of a VERUM operator. When using a means to express
VERUM168 in a proposition, the speaker announces that the thought expressed by this proposition is true. Hence, the use of VERUM results in a positive sentence polarity. This implies that the proposition itself is considered as background; i.e. given to some extent. As an example of how a verum focus reading can be yielded in contemporary French, consider (114), taken from Bernini (2009: 123)169.
(114) Pour être lu, ça serait lu. As for being read, it will.be read
With respect to verum focus, consider the example in (115) with the fronted adverb bien ‘well’.
(115) elle avoit fait absenter le dit Jouen, qui bien peust avoir esté arresté se elle pour lors eust bien fait son devoir she had made the said Jouen leave who well could have been arrested if she by then had done her duty well (1359,231)
According to Martin (1990), bien can be analysed either as a manner adverb or as a sentence adverb insisting on truth-conditional value of the sentence, i.e. bearing a VERUM operator in the sense of Leonetti and Escandell (2009). When translating the sequence qui bien peust avoir esté arresté as done in (116), one comes to the conclusion that this is the second possibility here, hence the fronted adverb bien yields a verum focus reading.
(116) … who [indeed could]/COULD have been arrested
In this data, there is another fronting of bien as a sentence adverb in a relative clause, namely in LDR 1423,4. When discussing bien, one readily recalls the adverb bonnement ‘satisfactorily’ discussed above along with other negation adverbs as a special type of manner adverbs and,
168 Such as word accent on the finite verb, the complementizer or a relative pronoun in German (Höhle 1992), insertion of do or indeed in English or fronting of certain constituents in Spanish (Leonetti and Escandell- Vidal 2009). 169 Turco (2014) points out the example, Bernini (2009) himself does not use the term verum focus.
Chapter 4. Analysis 171 therefore, potential frame setters. Recall that Krifka (2008) notes a certain overlap of frame setters and focus. Hence, since bien and the original meaning of bonnement display almost the same semantic content, the occurrences bearing a fronted adverb and including negation will be reviewed in order to check whether these occurrences are frame setters or rather bear a focus reading. For 5 of the 12 occurrences of fronted negation adverbs mentioned above, a verum focus reading can be assumed.170 Consider, for instance, the LDR discussed above in (107) and (108). In the same passage of (108), we find a fronted negative adverb pas; consider the sequence given in (117).
(117) il avoit pluseurs personne entre les quels estoit feu Thiebaut Go[nn]ee si yvre que soustenir ne se povoit […]. Et pour ce li eust esté dit du dit arriere guet que pas n’estoit en estat de veillier veu l’estat de lui. there were several persons among whom was defunct Thiebaut Gonnee so
drunken that sustain NEG REFL could […]. And because of that to him (it) has
been said by the said guard that (he) not NEG.was in the state to keep watch in view of his condition. (1359,121)
The fronted adverb pas can be analysed here as bearing a verum focus reading as illustrated by the alternative translation given in (118).
(118) And because of that he was told by the said guard that he [was indeed not]/WAS not in the state to keep watch.
The same holds for the sequence with the fronted negative adverb point given in (119).
(119) et ce pendant le dit Robert Le Caron li abati le chaperon devant les yeux en le batant toujours continuelment et lors le dit Macy meu de ire et de courous voulant obvier a lour mauvaise volenté en deboutant force par force lui qui point ne veoit And during that the said Robert Le Caron pulled down his hood in front of his eyes and continued beating him and when the said Macy moved by ire and anger wanting to resist to their bad will by repelling force by force he who
[indeed did]/DID not see anything (1359,252)
170 These occurrences are found in LDR 1359,121; 1359,252; 1360,255; 1360,285 and 1360,322.
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As mentioned before that the supplicant’s eyes were covered by his hood, the content of the relative clause is entirely given. Hence, the fronting can be argued as insisting on truth- conditional value of the sentence and, thus, as a type of verum focus fronting.
Finally, as an example of fronted bonnement that bears a verum focus reading, consider the following example in (120), which was used in (87) in order to illustrate the fronting of a locative frame setter.
(120) ledit suppliant […] qui bonnement d’illec ne povoit eschapper sanz mort
the said supplicant who indeed of there NEG could escape without death (1360,322)
The previous part of (120) in LDR 1360,322 contains a detailed description of the situation that preceded the crime that the supplicant committed: he was severly attacked by his opponent (Lequel de Losay lors s’aproucha dudit suppliant et haussa ladite espee et l’en cuida fendre la teste) but could dodge this attack partially (se bouta hastivement soubz le coup et ne fu ataint que du pommet). Since he was in peril of life (doubtant le peril de mort), the supplicant counterattacked his opponent. The description underlines the peril of life in which the supplicant had been. Hence, the fronting of bonnement in (120) can be analysed as an instance of verum focus as illustrated in the translation given in (121).
(121) who [indeed could]/COULD not escape of there without death
In conclusion, with respect to negative adverbs, there are some occurrences that do bear a verum focus reading while others do not. As an example of a fronted bonnement that does not bear a verum focus reading, consider (92) retaken here as (122), where an anaphoricity of the content of the corresponding subordinate clause cannot be established and thus a verum focus reading appears to be implausible.
(122) […] il avoit certain. quantité de genz d’armes et sergens en ladite ville pour la garde et deffense d’icelle et du pais aus coux et fraiz de ladite ville qui bonnement ne povoient estre paiez de leurs gages there were certain quantity of men-at-arms and sergeants in the said town for the guard and defence of this and of the region at the expense and cost of the said town who satisfactorily NEG could be paid of their wages(1357,25)
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Turco (2014) notes that sentence adverbs such as ‘certainly’ can likewise yield verum focus reading. Recall that another example of a fronted sentence adverb addressed further above was certainement ‘certainly’. The discourse context is given in (123):
(123) Et quant ledit de Losay vit que on li avoit ainsi osté ledit suppliant, il […] sacha une bonne espee blanche toute nue […] et dist audit suppliant […] que certainement il y mourroit And when the said Losay saw that they had taken him away from the said supplicant, he […] draw a good sword shiny and out of the scabbard […] and said to the said supplicant that certainly he would die there (1360,322)
The adverb certainement is used in indirect speech in order to reinforce the threat to attack the supplicant but this threat is not mentioned previously in discourse. Hence, a verum reading appears to be inappropriate, and the adverb is consequently considered to be informationally neutral. For the analysis of the last occurrence of a sentence adverb autrement, illustrated in (93) and retaken as (124), a possible underlying reinforcement of the truth-condition seems possible, as illustrated here by the insertion of ‘indeed’.
(124) Nous consider[ons] […] que autrement le dit Jehan a esté touz jours homme de bonne fame We consider that otherwise the said Jehan has (indeed) been all days (a) man of good fame (1359,177)
Although a detailed description of the supplicant’s conduct during his entire life is lacking in a LDR, extenuating circumstances, i.e. the precedent attack on the supplicant’s wife perpetrated by the victim, and the specific conduct of the supplicant, here the attempt to retrieve the honour of his wife, renders the general positive conduct of the supplicant accessible and, hence, may justify a verum reading of autrement.
Similarly, one could argue for a verum focus reading of the fronted adverb mauvesement ‘badly’ in (125) considered above to be a manner adverb and thus possibly a frame setter.
(125) les dessus nommez Colart Teste d’Omme et feu Guillaume Blondel meuz de grant ire et male volenté contre ledit Jaquet iceli eussent batu et villené tres grandem[ent] […] lequel Jaquet […] eust dit audit feu Blondel et crié par pluseurs foiz qu’il meist deffense en lui et qu’il li monstreroit que
Chapter 4. Analysis 174
mauvesement l’avoit batu The above named Colart Teste d’Omme and deceased Guillaume Blondel moved by big ire and bad will against the said Jaquet have beaten and slammed him very much […] This Jaquet has said to the said deceased Blondel and screamed by several times that he would defend himself and that he would show him that badly him.had beaten (1358,80)
As can be seen in (125), the severity of the blows against Jacquet is given in the first part of the example by batu et villené tres grandem[ent]. Therefore, the fronted adverb mauvesement can be considered to yield a verum focus reading by insisting in the severity as illustrated in the corrected translation of the embedded clause in (126):
(126) … that [indeed had]/HAD beaten him badly
The revision of the other manner adverbs discussed above does not reveal another occurrence of a fronted manner adverb bearing a verum focus reading as mauvesement does.
Now to complements that bear a verum focus reading, consider first the example given in (40) with the fronted PP a lui ‘to him.
(127) Et environ le mois d'aoust derrain passé, un nomé Thomas de Precy, nostre ennemi et adversere, eust envoié par devers ledit Elliot le Bret, lieutenant d'icelui viconte, deux lettres closes, l’une adreçant audit viconte et l'autre audit lieutenant, dont celle d’icelui lieutenant contenoit come ledit de Precy lui prioit qu'il envoiast a sondit maistre les autres lettres closes qui a lui se adressoient et qu'il en eust response dedans le mardi ensuivant. And around last August, a named Thomas de Precy, our enemy and adversary, had sent to the said Elliot le Bret, lieutenant of this viscount, two sealed letters, the one addressed to the said viscount and the other to the said lieutenant, of which this of this lieutenant contained that the said de Precy asked him that he
should send his said master the other sealed letters which to.him REFL addressed and that he should have the answer until the following Tuesday (1429,197)
As well as in the previous examples, the fronted item in (40) respectively the content of the corresponding embedded clause is given since the addressees of the sealed letters are mentioned
Chapter 4. Analysis 175 previously deux lettres closes, l’une adreçant audit viconte et l'autre audit lieutenant and the addressee of les autres lettres closes, the corresponding relative head of the relative clause in question, is logically inferable. Hence, the information contained in this, accordingly, non- restrictive relative clause containing the fronted element appears to be redundant. If one takes the fronted constituent to bear a verum reading, however, the function of the relative clause and the transmitted information changes. Consider possible translations of the corresponding sequence in (128).
(128) … he should send to his masteri the other sealed letters
which [indeed were]/WERE addressed to himi
If this interpretation is correct, the fronting of constituents in combination with a verum focus reading offers, apart from the canonical value of verum focus, a means to introduce a reminder for already given information in the previous discourse and, hence, to structure larger units of information beyond the (complex) sentence level.
The next fronted item which is looked at closely is the predicative expression a grant puissance ‘at major power’ in (129).
(129) Lesqueles choses venues a la congnoissance d'icelui exposant, veant que nosdiz adverseres a grant puissance estoient par tout le pais These things (having) come to the knowledge of this exponent, seeing that our said adversaries at major power were everywhere in the country (1431,203)
In order to identify the information-structural value of the fronted constituent here, a summary of the previous discourse is briefly considered. The supplicant was a stalwart of the king, issuer of the present LDR. He fought for the king in several battles and held the royal sergeancy in a town which was conquered by the enemies. He got captured, was tortured and mutilated during this captivity. Subsequently, he was freed. Et après ce qu'il fu hors de ladicte prise, et jusques au mois d'aoust l'an mil CCCC XXIX, que nosdiz adverseres se bouterent a puissance en nostre royaume de France (And after he was outside of the said capture and until the month of August of the year 1429, when our said adversaries came to power in our kingdom of France…), at that time, some former companions approached him and suggested conquering a castle and delivering it to the enemies. The supplicant refused to take part. However, the former companions stuck to the plan which could not be achieved because of the arrival of a royal
Chapter 4. Analysis 176 lieutenant who had heard rumours about it. The former companions assumed that the supplicant had revealed their plan and contacted a lord, who resided in the castle in question and who vowed revenge on the supplicant. The reaction of the lord is what is referred to by lesqueles choses in (129). The general seizure of power is already mentioned in the previous discourse as illustrated by nosdiz adverseres se bouterent a puissance en nostre royaume, but this mention doesn’t suffice to explain a verum focus reading. It is rather the fact that a person present in a royalist castle vows revenge on him that results in the recognition of the prominent influence of the adversaries and explains a verum focus reading as illustrated in the translation in (130) .
(130) seeing that our adversaries [indeed were]/WERE at major power everywhere in the country
Furthermore, there are several other occurrences of fronted predicative expressions having a verum focus reading that is evaluated in the following. Consider this example with a fronted predicative expression in a conditional clause:
(131) Si advint que pluseurs des habitans de la ville de Gloz […] en icelle sepmaine que la dite ville de Pont Audemer fu prinse par les diz ennemis et que iceulx chevauchoient par le pais d’environ icelle come dit est apperceurent deux personnes a cheval qui app(er)tement chevauchoient sur le dit pais […] lesquiex habitans cuidans iceulx pour la cause dessus dite estre de la compaignie des diz ennemis les suyvirent et prés d’iceulx approchierent pour les prendre se ennemis estoient So (it) happened that several of the inhabitants of the town of Gloz in this week when the said town of Pont Audemer was taken by the said enemies and when these rode around the region in the surroundings of this town as was said perceived two persons on horseback who adroitely rode across the said country […] those inhabitants taking these (persons) for the above said reason to be part of the company of the said enemies followed them and approached near the in order to take them if enemies were. (1359,166)
The fronted ennemis is a predicative nominal over the not overtly realized subject here. A verum focus reading seems plausible here, since the inhabitants approach the two horsemen believing that they could be enemies. However, a possible detention is subject to the condition that they are indeed enemies. Here is a translation of the sentence in question found in (132).
Chapter 4. Analysis 177
(132) … if they [were indeed]/WERE enemies.
In total, there are three occurrences of fronted elements in conditional clause. In LDR 1359,166, the conditional is retaken once and the other is the following example in (133) where the translation is directly given.
(133) La quele informacion ou informacions se aucunes faites en y a sur ce encontre les diz suppliant et page
This information or informations if there [were indeed]/WERE any made about this against the said supplicant and knave (1360,320)
These results are supported by Danckaert and Haegeman’s (2010) findings on the realization of expressions of emphatic polarity in root-like and non-root embedded contexts according to whom a subset of such expressions is compatible with conditional clauses and, therefore, with non-root embedded contexts.
Finally, there are also some fronted participles that bear a verum focus. As an example, consider (134), where promis ‘promised’ is fronted.
(134) ledit Guillaume Garnier pere eust esté prins prisonnier […] ledit Guillaume eust requis a nosdis ennemis qu'ils lui voulsissent donner congié d'aler fere sa finance […] en promectant retourner par devers eulx en ladicte prison […] ledit pere ne retourna point devers eulx, comme promis l'avoit the said Guillaume Garnier father had been taken prisoner […] the said Guillaume had requested of our said enemies that they should give him permission to go make his financing […] making the promise to return among them to the said prison […] the said father did not return to them, as promised it.had (1424,63)
As can be seen, promis is overtly given in the previous discourse by the gerund form en promectant. Furthermore, it is clear that the promise is the same, namely the promise to return. Hence, the verum focus reading of the fronted participle promis is evident and can be translated as follows in (135).
(135) … as he HAD promised
Chapter 4. Analysis 178
(136) offers a similar picture, at least with respect to the fronting context which is the same as in (134).
(136) il eust esté requis et prié moult affectueusement de Jehan Le Hardi et sa femme que il vosist estre leur compere d’un enfant dont ladite femme estoit ençainte. lequel suppliant meu de bonne volenté et par tres grant affeccion et de cherité leur accorda. […] auquel lieu le dit suppliant estoit pour faire son devoir de tenir le dit enfant comme promis l’avoit he had been asked very affectionately by Jehan Le Hard and his wife to be the godfather of a child with whom the said wife was pregnant. This supplicant moved by good will and by very strong affection and by charity accorded […] at this place the said supplicant was in order to do his duty of holding the child as promised it.had (1360,310)
At first sight, one might wonder if comme promis l’avoit is rather a collocation. However, these are the only two occurrences found in the two different parts of our corpus. Furthermore, if one considers (136) in detail, one notices that the givenness of promis appears less evident. No other verb form of promettre is previously found in the LDR. Nevertheless, the analysis made for (134) can be maintained for (136): the verb accorda ‘accorded’ is semantically close to promettre, the supplicant agreed or even granted to act as godfather. The fronted participle can therefore be considered to be activated by the use of accorda and, hence, regarded as bearing the same verum focus reading as (134) does. The translation given in (135) is thus also validated for (136).
There are two occurrences, where a participle of faire ‘to do, to make’ is fronted. First, have a closer look at the example in (137).
(137) contenant comme en l’annee derrenier. passee feu Robin Garin de fait et senz aucune raisonnable eust batue et villenee tres excessivement et villainement la femme du dit Bachelier en l’absence d’iceli et aprés se feust venue sa dite famme a li et li eust monstré comme le dit Robin l’avoit villainement batue et sanz aucune cause raisonnable en li priant que il gardast son honneur. Et sur ce courrocié du dit fait eust parlé a deux hommes de son amitié en leur monstrant la villenie que faite li estoit en la personne de sa femme ainsi batue et villenee containing that in the past year defunct Robin Garin of feat and without any
Chapter 4. Analysis 179
reasonable had beaten and mistreated very excessively and vilely the wife of said Bachelier in the absence of him and thereafter his wife had come to him and had shown him how the said Robin had vilely beaten her and without any reasonable cause asking him that he should preserve her honour. And thereupon enraged about the said act (he) had spoken to two men of his amity showing them the vileness which made to.him was in the person of his wife so beaten and mistreated (1359,177)
In (137), the fronted participle faite can be translated by ‘made’. The participle seems to be new in the context at first sight. However, by looking closer at the previous discourse, one can see that the whole relative clause is rendered accessible by batue et villenee tres excessivement et villainement la femme du dit Bachelier. One may wonder if it conveys information itself or rather is an instance of a light verb. In this case, the question arises whether the relative clause bears another entity that expresses the semantic content. This is not the case. Rather than bearing no semantic content and thus being translated by ‘done’ solely, faite is combined with li and therefore needs to be translated by ‘done to someone’. The above-mentioned activation of faite in the previous discourse leads once again to the conclusion that the fronted participle bears a verum focus reading translated as follows:
(138) … the vileness that [was indeed]/WAS made to him…
The second occurrence with a fronted fait is found in (139).
(139) Et les dictes gens aussi par maniere de informacion examinés par ycellui, et entre les quelles gens estoit le pere du dit feu Colin, eust esté trouvé par leurs seremens sur ce requis par nostre dit bailli que il ne cuidoient la dicte femme estre coupable en aucune maniere du dit fait ne que fait eust esté par son sceu ou consentement And the said people also by inquiry examined by him, and among these people there were the father of the said defunct Colin, (it) has been found by their oaths requested about this (event) by our said bailiff that they did not consider the said woman to be guilty in any way of the said crime nor that made had been to her knowledge or upon her consent (1359,231)
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The fronting of fait takes places in a negatively coordinated complement clause of cuidoient. For fait, the situation is the same as in for the previous example in (137): fait itself seems to be new in the context at first sight. However, the discourse context describing the committing of a crime (fait) renders it accessible. As well as for the previous example, fait could be considered as a light verb. This seems to be more plausible than for the example in (137) since in (139) fait corresponds to ‘done’ solely. However, even if fait is attributed a light verb function here, the question of its information-structure remains open. A basic or contrastive topic or focus reading seems implausible with respect to its semantic lightweight. However, a possible effect would be verum focus reading of the whole sentence, i.e. a verum focus construction, similar to English do verum focus. This reading could in English be rendered in two ways: with verum focus construction in the complement clause (140) or in do of the matrix clause (141).
(140) … they do not believe … that it [had indeed]/HAD been made with her knowledge and her consent.
(141) … they do not believe … that it had been made with her knowledge and her consent.
To summarize the present section, it becomes clear that different types of fronted items can be analysed as bearing a verum focus reading. Apart from sentence adverbs that yield a verum focus interpretation there are also other fronted items such as manner adverbs, direct objects, predicative expressions over the subject, and past participles.
4.2.4.4 Summary
To summarize the findings on focus, the majority of these occurrences exhibit a verum focus reading. It was shown that some adverbs initially argued to be frame setters do bear a verum focus reading, too. However, as illustrated with the case of negative adverbs, one cannot take a group of adverbs to systematically bear such a reading. Furthermore, there were two instances of contrastive focus and two occurrences where parallels were highlighted. Within one LDR, also two occurrences of fronted items having a secondary information focus were found. Before turning to the syntactical analysis, the cases are discussed where the information-structural properties could not (or could only at a second glance) be classified following the notions of Krifka (2008).
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4.2.5 Other cases
There are some other occurrences for which the fixing of their information-structural properties is far from obvious. However, within these occurrences three groups were identified where there appear to be interrelations and, thus, a common semantic field could be identified.
4.2.5.1 Droit
This is the largest group of other cases. There are eight fronted elements that, by their semantic content, could be identified as being linked to the lexical field of droit ‘law’, i.e. duty and right: the past participles commandé ‘commanded’ (twice), tenu ‘obliged’, deuez ‘owed’ and ordonné ‘ordered’ and the predicative expressions être mestier ‘must’ and être raison ‘to be right’ (twice).171 First, consider (142) with the fronted past participle commandé ‘commanded’.
(142) il et pluseurs autres habitans de ladite ville de Karenten furent mis ou chastel de ladite ville ne n’avoient de quoi vivre fors par la main des Navarrois ausquelz il leur convenoit obeir et iceux servir en armes contre les François touteffoiz que commandé leur estoit sur paine de perdre la teste. he and several other inhabitants of the said town of Carentan were put in the
castle of the said town nor NEG had means to subsist if not by the hand of the adherents of Navarre to whom it was advisable for them to obey and serve against the French every time when commanded them was on pain of losing their head (1358,70)
In (142) the fronted participle commandé is new in discourse, although it can be taken to be activated to a certain extent by the verbs obeir and servir. A contrastive or new information focus reading of fronted appears not be justified for lack of contrast and because of the lack of entire newness respectively. A verum focus reading seems likewise unlikely at first glance, since the activation of commandé is rather indirect in the discourse context: to obey implies a command but from a chronological point of view the command precedes the obedience of an order. Therefore, a verum focus reading is not immediate. Before coming to a conclusion of the example, there are two other examples. Consider the fronting of tenu ‘obliged’ in (143).
171 These occurrences were found in the following LDR 1357,4; 1358,70; 1359,212; 1424,36; 1433,225.
Chapter 4. Analysis 182
(143) Et en parlant de leurs besoingnes et affaires, entrerent a parler comme ilz pourroient finer a Jehan de Hennot dit Colombie, qui avoit sur ledit suppliant un gaige ou obligacion montant à la somme de six livres tournois, a cause de ce qu'il avoit plegié Simon Marie de ladicte somme envers ledit Hennot, et si y avoit encores a cause de ce certains despens ; de laquele somme et despens icelui suppliant avoit tousjours cuidié que ledit Simon le delivrast envers icelui Hennot, come tenu y estoit. And when talking about their needs and business, (they) started to talk about how they could pay to Jehan de Hennot said Colombie, who had on the said supplicant a pawn or engagement coming to six livre tournois, because he had vouched for Simon Macié for the said sum towards the said Hennot and so there were still some expenses because of that; of this sum and expenses, this supplicant had always thought that the said Simon would deliver it towards this
Hennot, as obliged LOC was. (1433,225)
Tenu is likewise new in the discourse context and activated to some extent by the previous plegié ‘vouched’, which implies an obligation by the guarantee towards the guarantor. Even though this activation is likewise implicit, it appears to be straighter than that of commandé in (142). Hence, the fronting of tenu in (143) is taken to be an instance of verum focus fronting, which is substantiated by the following translation in (144).
(144) … as he [as indeed]/ WAS obliged.
Finally, consider the following example in (145) with the fronted predicative expression raison ‘right’.
(145) Et furent menez ledit du Pont et sesdiz adherens ou chastel dudit Estrepaigny prisonniers, et depuis amenez en nozdites prisons de Gisors et baillez en garde audit suppliant, pour en estre ordonné par justice ainsi que raison seroit And were brought the said du Pont and his said adherents to the castle of the said Estrepaigny as prisoners, and since then brought in our said prisons of Gisors and put in custody of the said supplicant, in order to be convicted by justice as right would be (1424,36)
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In contrast to the previous examples, the activation of the fronted noun raison ‘right’ is obvious. Even though the constituent itself is new in the discourse context, the immediately preceding noun justice ‘justice’ renders raison accessible. A verum focus reading is thus plausible and the fronted sequence can then be translated as follows:
(146) … as it [would indeed]/WOULD be right
With respect to the observation that there is a cluster of fronted participles concerned with droit of which some as the example in (142) appear to be difficult to classify, a suggestion is made by paying attention to the aim of the genre of LDR. As a legal document, they administer justice and, therefore, an inherent part of them is to insist on legitimacy of justice in order to justify their own purpose. This effect can be labelled as metalinguistic, as suggested in section 3.2.1 above, because of the reference point of the fronted constituents being the Lettre de rémission itself. At the same time, this effect allows for a verum focus interpretation of frontings as (143) and (145). In this case, the verum focus fronting represents a stylistic device in order to emphasize the legitimacy of law and of obligations. Therefore, the assignation of a verum focus reading to examples such as (142) seems plausible and allows to explain the accumulation frontings within the lexical field of droit.
4.2.5.2 Presence
Furthermore, there are three fronted predicative expressions that could not be classified into the above discussed information-structural categories. All three are found within restrictive relative clauses and are linked to the semantic field of physical presence. Consider (147) with the fronted adjective presens ‘present’ as a first example.
(147) et convint que ceulx qui presens estoient se levassent pour lui oster ledit Graindorge d'entre ses mains. and (it) was necessary that those that present were got up to him remove the said Graindorge out of his hands (1431,201)
The fronted item itself is new. In the previous discourse, there is the description of a fight between the two persons mentioned in the example given above (lui, Graindorge). At the very beginning, the corresponding referents to ceux qui presens estoient can be tracked, namely in the introduction were the discourse context is set, compare (148).
Chapter 4. Analysis 184
(148) ledit Graindorge feust alé disner en l’ostel d'un nommé Jehan Rousselaie, ouquel icelui Graindorge et pluseurs autres estoient alez veoir la femme d'icelui Rousselaie qui gesoit d'enfant. the said Graindorge went to have dinner at the mansion of a named Jehan Rousselaie to where this Graindorge and several other had gone to see the wife of this Rousselaie who gave birth to a child (1431,201)
The other present persons are not introduced as a group here, but they render the whole constituent accessible to a certain degree. However, in between (148) and (147), there are 250 words, arranged in several complex sentences. Therefore, the activation of the other persons’ presence is restrained. With regard to the information-structural properties of fronted presens, neither a topic reading nor a basic information focus appears to be possible. A potential contrast could not be found either. With respect to a verum focus reading, the question is if the fronted adjective is sufficiently activated in order to bear a verum focus reading. One might argue in favour of a ‘light’ or modified verum focus effect by taking the fronting as a device to remind the reader of the other persons’ presence. The effect could be rendered possible by the following adapted German translation in (149) containing the modal particle ja, which is used here not as a marker of verum focus but rather in order to update consistently the context (Gast 2008).
(149) …jene, die ja anwesend waren,… … those who, as you know, were present
However, the effect is not same as that of a canonical verum focus. The two other occurrences combining fronting and predicative expression of presence are found in LDR 1358,61.
(150) audit mess. Jehan Paienel et a touz autres qui en sa compaignie furent a la prinse et occupacion dudit chastel et a tout ce qui s’en est ensui maismement et qui a ce donnerent conseil confort et aide to the said Jehan Paienel and to all others who in his company were at the capture and occupation of the said castle and at all what had ensued likewise and who to that gave advice, comfort and assistance (1358,61)
(151) lesdiz Paienel et ceulz qui comme dit est auroient en ce donné confort et aide et autres quelcunques qui audit chastel prendre furent
Chapter 4. Analysis 185
the said Paienel and those who as it is said would have given to that comfort and assistance and any others who to the said castle to.take were (1358,61)
Both occurrences are found outside the narratio of the LDR, namely in the dispositio ‘the act of law’ and the injonctio ‘the obligation of the local agents of the ruler’. However, the occurrences underline that items that are linked to presence seem to behave in a special way with regard to fronting in relative clauses. In short, the discourse context and the distribution of possible antecedents are similar to those of presens (cf. (147)). The request for pardon was made by Jehan Paienel and the citizens and inhabitants of St. Jame de Bevron, compare the part in (152) from the beginning of the corresponding LDR.
(152) […] exposé a nous de la partie de mess. Jehan Paienel chevalier, capitaine de la ville de S. Jame de Be[v]ron et des bourgois et habitans d’icelle exposed to us by Sir Jehan Paienel knight, captain of the town of St. Jame de Bevron and by the citizens and inhabitants of this (town)
With regard to the information-structural properties of fronted constituents, a ‘light’ or modified verum focus effect as assumed for presens is less likely, since the supplicants are clearly introduced at the beginning of the LDR. A translation as in (135) would be odd in German. Hence, the conclusion is that the information-structural motivation of the frontings in (150) and (151) appears to be lost.
4.2.5.3 bon
Another fronted predicative item whose information-structural motivation appears to be obscure is found in (153).
(153) Et lors ledit suppliant lui dist : «Vous estes mauvais villain; quant on vous dit aucune chose pour bien, vous respondez orgueilleusement ores et autresfoiz; il ne vous appartient pas de ainsi respondre, et avez bien deservi d’avoir ung coup de baston.» A quoy ledit Martin […] lui respondi plus orgueilleusement et arrogamment que devant: «Si me le donnez doncques, s’il vous semble que bon soit» and then the said supplicant said to him: “You are a bad villain, when one says to you something for the best, you answer arrogantly now and in the past, it is not appropriate for you to answer in that way and [you] have well deserved to
Chapter 4. Analysis 186
get a blow with a stick.” At what the said Martin answered him more haughtily and arrogantly than before: “So give it to me then, if it seems to you that good is” (1423,1)
The fronted item bon ‘good’ is a predicative adjective over a not overtly realized expletive subject within a complement clause depending on the raising construction il vous semble ‘it seems to you’. The fronted element bon is not given in the present discourse context. A verum focus reading appears to be unobvious. Rather, one could argue that the fronting is used as a stylistic device in order to illustrate the arrogant and inappropriate reply of ledit Martin in analogy to the fronting of bon in the collocation ce que/comme/si bon vous semble.
4.2.6 Summary
To summarize the present chapter, a short overview is given about the distribution of the different basic notions of information structure in relation to the sentence types. Recall that five different types of frame setters regarding time, cause, passive agents, space and manner were identified. Except for spatial frame setters, which were mainly found in relative clauses, the proportions of other types of frame setters are balanced within the three sentence groups. A balanced distribution of fronted elements is generally the case of other subordinate clauses. The occurrences of this context are found not only as frame setters but also as topic and focus constituents. With regard to the former, they represent a large majority of all cases, namely 80%. With regard to the latter, the distribution is once again balanced within the three groups. To sum up, frontings in relative and comparative clauses are either analysed as frame setters or as focus constituents with just a few exceptions. Finally, there were some cases of fronted occurrences left for which the determination of an informational structural role appeared to be difficult. A first group of occurrences classified according to their lexical properties as part of a droit group were found in all three sentence contexts. As illustrated, a verum focus reading of these frontings seems to be available and can be considered as a stylistic device in order to emphasize the legitimacy of droit and, hence, of the production context of the genre LDR. Second, there were three occurrences found in relative clauses, which were grouped as indicating presence. While a ‘light’ verum focus effect was assumed for one occurrence, the information-structural motivation appears to be lost for the other. Finally, one occurrence was identified as a variant of the fixed structure ce que/comme bon vous semble. For an overview on the findings in the present chapter, compare the following tables 4a on frame setters and modifiers, and 4b on topic and focus constituents.
Chapter 4. Analysis 187
adverbs PP NP time 56 56 4 cause 0 37 0 passive agents 0 20 0 space 3 12 0 manner 26 13 0
Table 4a. Distribution of Frame setters across the different syntactic categories
relative clauses comparative clauses other subordinate clauses topics 4 1 20 new information focus 1 1 1 contrastive focus (1) 0 1 verum focus 6+(1) 2 10 metalinguistic 2 2 4 other 3 0 1
Table 4b. Distribution of IS values across sentence types
Before turning to the syntactic analysis of the present data, the question is shortly addressed to which extent a consistent informational role can be attributed to stylistically fronted elements. For this purpose, it is first necessary to delimit which of the fronted occurrences in this data are stylistically fronted elements and which are not. As shown before in section 4.1.2.2, the syntactic properties attributed to this type of fronting such as clause-boundness, locality constraints, and the subject gap have been challenged. Therefore, these properties are not considered in order to determine the group of stylistically fronted elements. Instead, two factors are combined: on the one hand, the syntactic function assumed by the respective elements, and the type of the embedded clause on the other hand. With regard to the observation of Main Clause Phenomena in embedded contexts other than relative and comparative clauses, it appears that a further distinction is necessary. For the analysis of the “Stylistic Fronting” type, one mainly concentrates on the relative clauses in order to prevent interferences with Main Clause Phenomena. Additionally, the focus is rather on constituents of VP than on non-constituents of VP, i.e. those fronted items that are neither arguments of the verb, nor infinite forms of the verb itself.
In anticipation of the upcoming section, it will be suggested that stylistically fronted elements indeed bear a consistent informational role, namely that of a (verum) focus. Hence, frame setters
Chapter 4. Analysis 188 are not considered as stylistically fronted elements but those fronted adverbs assumed to bear verum focus, are. The few occurrences in relative and comparative clause contexts that bear a topic reading are taken as exceptions caused by the ongoing loss of the structure throughout the investigated period.
4.3 Syntactic analysis
In the present section, there is a distinction between relative and comparative clauses on the one hand and other subordinate clauses on the other hand, since the results of the previous section have shown that the distribution of the different configurations across relative and comparative clauses are on a par and but differ from other subordinate contexts. First, a syntactic analysis for the different fronting contexts in other subordinate contexts is proposed. The focus is on frame setters and topic constituents. The main discussion of focus constituents is put into the second part of the present section. For each type, a derivation is suggested, and a detailed map of the left periphery as depicted by our data is given. Second, the fronting types of relative and comparative contexts are syntactically examined by paying special attention to the analysis of focus constituents. Furthermore, some specifications on the analysis of frame setters in relative clauses are made. As a result, an overview of the left edge of relative clauses in Middle French is given in accordance with this data. Finally, remaining issues are addressed and an alternative approach covering these issues is made.
4.3.1 Other subordinate contexts
Recall that so-called Main Clause Phenomena, i.e. syntactic phenomena restricted to root clauses (Edmonds 1970), are available in some types of subordinate clauses. The general assumption is that in these contexts the left periphery is fully accessible, for instance, for movement (Haegeman 2014). Recall that for the French complementizer que, Salvesen (2014) suggests that a full split CP is available in Medieval French. Hence, for the analysis of the fronted items in other subordinate contexts, the split CP assumed in (5), respectively (36), retaken here as (154), is available.
(154) [ForceP {Topic [FrameP* [ThemeP* [Rci1P {Focus [ContrastFocP* [Rci2P [NInformFocP [VerumFocP [FinP
[TP ]]]]]]}]]]}]
Chapter 4. Analysis 189
The next section illustrates in which way (154) helps to capture the articulating of a syntactic analysis with reference to the elements analysed as frame setters before turning to the analysis of focus and topic constituents.
4.3.1.1 Adverbs and adverbials
The fronted elements being analysed as frame setters in the previous section can be subsumed from a syntactic viewpoint as being either adverbs or adverbials (i.e. the PPs and DPs analysed as frame setters). Recall that the analysis in the previous section follows Krifka’s (2008) conception of frame setters as a means to systematically restrict the context, i.e. to exclude alternative frames that might have been considered otherwise. As illustrated above, this definition allows subsuming various types of adverbs and adverbials under the notion of ‘frame setter’. From a syntactic point of view, these types considered to be adjuncts are differently analysed depending on which approach one follows. On the one hand, following Cinque (1997) it is assumed that adverbs and adverbials are base-generated in the specifier positions of functional projections according to the functional value inherent to the corresponding adverb or adverbial. Compare the schematic illustration of the universal hierarchy of clausal functional projections given in (155), taken from Cinque (1997: 178).172
(155) [frankly Moodspeech act [fortunately Moodevaluative [allegedly Moodevidential
[probably Moodepistemic [once T(Past) [then T(Future) [perhaps Moodirrealis
[necessarily Modnecessity [possibly Modpossibility [willingly Modvolitional [inevitably
Modobligation [cleverly Modability/permission [usually Asphabitual [again Asprepetitive(I)
[often Aspfrequentative(I) [quickly Aspcelerative(I) [already T(Anterior) [no longer
Aspterminative [still Aspcontinuative [always Aspperfect(?) [just Aspretrospective [soon
Aspproximative [briefly Aspdurative [characteristically(?) Aspgeneric/progressive [almost
Aspprospective[completely AspSgCompletive(I) [tutto AspPICompletive [well Voice
[fast/early Aspcelerative (II) [completely AspSgCompletive(II) [again Asprepetive(II) [often
Aspfrequentative(II) …
On the other hand, Haider (2000) and Ernst (2002) suggest that the distribution of adverbials is not constrained by syntax but by independent semantic scope principles, i.e. from a syntactic
172 van Gelderen (2013) gives an overview of debatable questions on the hierarchy, for an alternative approach consider Haumann (2007).
Chapter 4. Analysis 190 point of view, adverbs and adverbials can freely adjunct to any category. Frey’s (2003) approach is situated in between the two. He assumes the distribution of adjuncts to be regulated by grammar, by distinguishing different adjunct classes whose base position is determined in relation to each other and to other elements of the clause. Accordingly, the following hierarchy of the base positions in (156) can be established (cf. Frey 2003).
(156) (i) Sentence adjuncts: c-commanding all other base positions (ii) Frame and domain adjuncts: c-commanding the base positions of the arguments and of the remaining adjunct classes except (i) (iii) Event-external adjuncts: c-commanding the base position of the highest ranked argument (i.e. the subject) (iv) Event-internal adjuncts: The base position is minimally c-commanded by the base-position of the highest ranked argument (i.e. subject) (v) Process-related adjuncts: minimally c-commanding a base position of the main predicate
Frey (2003) gives the following examples: by frame adjuncts he understands reference time related temporal adverbials, by event-external adjuncts, for example, causal adverbials, by event-internal adjuncts event-related temporal, locative, or instrumental adverbials, and by process-related adjuncts manner adverbials. With regard to minimal c-command in (156), he notes that adjuncts of the same class can intervene.
Leaving the semantic scope approach apart, for our purposes neither Cinque’s (1997) nor Frey’s (2003) approach provide a possibility to account for the frontings of manner or clausal adjuncts to the left of the overtly realized subject, compare the following example (157).
(157) sanz ce que pour le fait dessus dit il peust pour le temps avenir without that for the fact above said he could for the time to come riens plus demander au dit suppliant anything more ask to.the said supplicant ‘without that he could request anything more of the said supplicant in the future because of the things detailed above.’ (1360,310)
If we follow Frey (2003), pour le fait dessus dit as a clausal adverbial would clearly not be located in its base position but must have been moved.
Chapter 4. Analysis 191
The same holds for Cinque’s (1997) analysis when applied to the following example with fronted lors et depuis ‘then and since’:
(158) pour ce que lors et depuis ycellui Jaquemin confessa que… because then and since this Jaquemin confessed that… ‘because Jaquemin confessed then and since that…’ (1357,4)
According to Cinque’s (1997) hierarchy in (155), the heads below Moodevidential and above
Aspgeneric/progressive are assumed to correspond to the TP layer (van Gelderen 2013). Thus, in order to account for the two adverbials to the left of the subject as in (157) and (158), one needs to assume movement to higher position if one follows Cinque (1997) or Frey (2003). While for the coordinated adverbial lors et depuis the movement to FrameP appears to be possible by assuming it being related to reference time, in terms of Frey (2003), such an analysis seems rather implausible for pour le fait dessus dit. In order to meet such criticisms, Cinque (2004) postulates a position that hosts clause initial adverbs within the CP layer and below the Topic and Focus fields. He bases his idea on Rizzi (2004b), who labels this projection as Mod(ifier)P. A similar proposal is made by Haumann (2007), who calls the corresponding projection Prominence Phrase and situates it as well between the focus field and FinP. This idea is adopted for this analysis and (154) is accordingly adapt as illustrated in (159).
(159) [ForceP {Topic [FrameP* [ThemeP* [Rci1P {Focus [ContrastFocP* [Rci2P [NInformFocP [VerumFocP
[ModP[FinP [TP ]]]]]]]}]]]}]
Furthermore, for the sake of the clarity of the representation, Frey’s (2003) approach is applied here. Hence, the exemplary analysis based on Frey (2003) of (157) would be as follows:
(160) [ForceP sanz ce que [ModP pour le fait dessus ditk [TP ilj [T° peusti [vP tk [vP tj [v’ pour
le temps avenir [v° ti [VP ti riens plus demander au dit suppliant]]]]]]]]]
The event-internal adverbial pour le temps avenir is merged as an adjunct to v’, where its base position is minimally c-commanded by the subject il merged in Spec,vP. Since the base position of event-external adverbial needs to c-command the base position of the subject, the lowest position available for ti to merge is an adjunct to vP immediately above Spec,vP. The verb moves to the T head in order to check the person and number features while the subject moves to Spec,TP in order to get case. Pour le fait dessus dit has moved to Spec,ModP. Finally, the subordinate item is merged to Force.
Chapter 4. Analysis 192
Lors et depuis in (158) can be analysed as a frame setter and the corresponding derivation is illustrated in (161).
(161) [ForceP pour ce que [FrameP lors et depuis [TP ycellui Jaqueminj [T° confessai [vP tj
[v° ti [VP ti que]]]]]]]
As lors et depuis is assumed to be a frame setter, it is directly merged at the specifier of FrameP in (161). If analysed as an event-internal adverbial such as pour le temps avenir in (160), it would be merged in the same position as pour le temps avenir and, subsequently, moved to the specifier of ModP just as proposed for pour le fait dessus dit in (160). This matter is taken up again in the section on adverbials in relative clauses.
As an example of sentence adverbial, recall the example given in (123), retaken here in parts as (162).
(162) et dist audit suppliant […] que certainement il y mourroit
and said to.the.said supplicant that certainly he LOC would.die (1360,322)
Certainement was analysed as a sentence adverbial above, hence, according to Frey (2003), the position where it is merged needs to c-command all other base positions. Therefore, a further position needs to be postulated for sentence adverbials above FrameP, which was taken to be the position where frame setters are merged. On the basis of Cinque (1997) and van Gelderen (2013), this projection is here called MoodP which resumes and generalizes Cinque’s (1997) projections for adverbs in the CP layer as illustrated in the adopted split CP (163).173
(163) [ForceP [MoodP {Topic [FrameP* [ThemeP* [Rci1P {Focus [ContrastFocP* [Rci2P [NInformFocP
[VerumFocP [ModP [FinP [TP ]]]]]]]}]]]}]]
For (162), the derivation would be as follows:
(164) [ForceP que [MoodP certainement [TP il y mourroit]]]
173 A simple adjunction on FrameP without yielding an own projection as the here postulated MoodP as being done for the event-internal adverbial on vP in (160) is likewise possible. However, within the cartographic tradition and bearing Cinque’s (1997) observations on mood adverbials in mind, one would rather expect an additional phrase as it was done here.
Chapter 4. Analysis 193
From here onwards, the derivation of the TP is not detailed anymore, whenever the derivation of the fronted element in question is above TP. In (164), certainement is directly merged as a specifier of MoodP.
Up to now, only occurrences with a single fronted constituent have been discussed. For these occurrences, one could wonder why a CP offering three different positions that potentially host adverbials is necessary. Instead, one might argue that there is one position where frame setters are merged and another one for sentence adverbials. The other fronted adverbials could then simply be assumed to move from their merge position to one of these other positions, i.e. either FrameP or MoodP. In order to illustrate why such a differentiation is useful for this data, there are the following examples in (165) and (166), both bearing multiple elements at the left edge of the subordinate clause.
(165) pour ce que autrement bonnement ne povoit retourner
because otherwise satisfactorily NEG could return ‘because otherwise he could not return’ (1424,25)
(166) tellement que jamais bonnement ne se pourra
so much that ever satisfactorily NEG REFL will.can aidier de son corps to.help of his body ‘so much that never again he will be able to move his body’ (1424,43)
Recall that bonnement was found as a fronted adverb bearing a verum focus reading but also as an adverb analysed to be a frame setter. The latter is the case of the two instances found in (165) and (166). The proper meaning of bonnement is ‘satisfactorily’ but in this data, it is always used in combination with ne ‘NEG’, which it can precede. However, bonnement is also found postverbally as the comparative clause in (167) illustrates.174
(167) si grant dangier […] qu'ilz n’osent bonnement contre-dire
so big danger that.they NEG.dare satisfactorily to.contradict ‘so big danger that they didn’t dare contradict’ (1423,22)
174 Interesting, though not relevant for the present analysis, as far as I know, is the fact that the frontings of bonnement found in my data are always combined with a finite form of pouvoir ‘can’ in past, present and future tenses.
Chapter 4. Analysis 194
In terms of Frey (2003), bonnement in contexts as (165) and (166) correspond to process-related adjuncts, whose base position is assumed to minimally c-command a base position of the main predicate, i.e. in the VP layer. Thus, these fronted instances of bonnement must have moved to a preverbal position to the left of the subject, as shown by the following occurrence combining an overt pronominal subject with fronted bonnement:
(168) pour ce que […] bonnement ilz ne povoient tous couchier
because satisfactorily they NEG could all sleep en icelui vaissel in that vessel (1432,211)
If the existence of ModP was not assumed, bonnement in (168) could be moved to FrameP or MoodP. Such an analysis is not sustainable anymore when considering (165) and (166) together. Autrement in (165) is a sentence adverb, whereas jamais in (166) can be analysed as a reference time related temporal adverbial, thus a frame setter. While in (165), bonnement could be analysed to move to FrameP, this position is not available in (166), because jamais is directly merged there. Hence, in order to provide a uniform account for (165) and (166), the assumption of ModP below the Focus field is maintained. The derivations of (165) and (166) are given in (169) and (170) respectively.
(169) [ForceP pour ce que [MoodP autrement [ModP bonnementj [TP ne povoiti [VP tj ti retourner]]]]]
(170) [ForceP que [FrameP jamais [ModP bonnementj [TP ne se pourrai [VP tj ti aidier de son corps]]]]]
In both cases bonnement is merged as an adjunct to VP after the merging of pouvoir as main predicate.175 The latter is moved to T in order to check the number and person features, whereas bonnement is moved to the specifier of ModP. Thereupon, autrement in (169) and jamais in (170) are merged to the corresponding specifier positions of FrameP and MoodP respectively.
175 Recall that bonnement was considered to be on the way of demotivation from a manner adverb to a pure negation adverb. In order to keep the derivation simple, a special NegP was not introduced. However, in order to account for demotivated bonnement, one just needs to add a NegP above VP with bonnement merged to its specifier. For (169), the derivation would be as follows: i. [ForceP pour ce que [MoodP autrement [ModP bonnementk [TP nej+povoiti [NegP tk [Neg° tj+ti [VP ti retourner]]]]].
Chapter 4. Analysis 195
To summarize the present section, the occurrences containing adverbials at the left edge of other subordinate contexts, can be accounted for by using a slightly modified split CP based on findings of Frey (2003), Cinque (2004) and Rizzi (2004b). While the fronted items analysed as frame setters or sentence adverbials are base-generated and thus directly merged to the corresponding positions, FrameP and MoodP in the split CP, others appear to be indeed fronted to the left periphery from base positions within the TP or VP layer. This issue is taken up again when analysing the syntax of fronted adverbials in relative and comparative clauses.
4.3.1.2 Foci
Recall that all two types of foci are found as fronted items in other subordinate contexts, contrastive focus as in (109), retaken as (171), and verum focus as in (129), retaken as (172).
(171) Et quant vit le dit Loys que autre chose ne li trairoit de la bouche…
And when the said Loys saw that other thing NEG would get out of his mouth… (1359,190)
(172) Lesqueles choses venues a la congnoissance d'icelui exposant, veant que nosdiz adverseres a grant puissance estoient par tout le pais These things having come to the knowledge of this exponent, seeing that our said adversaries at major power were everywhere in the country (1431,203)
Based on the split CP assumed above in (163), the corresponding derivation would be as follows. For (171) consider (173).
(173) [ForceP que [ContrastFocP autre chosej [TP ne li trairoiti [VP de la bouche [VP ti tj ]]]]]
After the merge of the indefinite NP and the verb at VP, the PP de la bouche is merged. The finite verb together with the object clitic li and the negative ne moves to T in order to check for person and number features.176 The indefinite NP autre chose moves to the specifier of the ContrastFocP in order to check the corresponding feature. Finally, the complementizer is merged to Force.
For the derivation of (172) consider (174):
176 In order to facilitate the reading of (173), the exact position of merge of li and ne was not detailed, since here the main interest is to explain the fronting of autre chose.
Chapter 4. Analysis 196
(174) [ForceP que [ThemeP nosdiz adverseresj [VerumFocP a grant puissancek [TP tj estoienti
[VP tj [V’ par tout le pais [V’ ti tk ]]]]]]]
After the formation of the predicative expression in V’, the locative PP is merged as an adjunction to V’. The subject nosdiz adverseres is merged to the specifier position of VP. The finite verb moves to T in order to check for person and number features as well as the subject, which moves to the specifier of TP. The PP a grant puissance moves to the specifier of
VerumFocP in order to check a VERUM feature. Finally, the subject assumed to bear a potential topic reading moves to the specifier of ThemeP in order to check for the corresponding feature. The subject can be assumed to bear a topic reading, since it is active in the present discourse (compare the use of nosdiz ‘our said’). However, some doubts remain, since, for instance, Leonetti and Escandell-Vidal (2009) assume that verum focus does not allow further information-structural partition of the clause. Thus, movement of constituents other than the one bearing verum focus should not be possible. Since verum focus frontings were also found in relative and comparative clause, the matter is taken up later and the question of the exact position of the VerumFocP is addressed in the section on relative and comparative clauses.
4.3.1.3 Topics
With regard to fronted topic constituents in other subordinate clauses, three types can be distinguished. On the one hand, there is a group of topic constituents composed of a PP involving a demonstrative pronoun as illustrated in (94) retaken here as (175).
(175) pour ce que de ce icele Marion se doulousoit moult
because about this this Marion REFL grieved much ‘because about that this Marion grieved a lot’ (1432,204)
On the other hand there is a group of fronted DPs bearing a topic reading as in (101), retaken here as (176).
(176) que sesdictes cuirasses il voulsist fere porter audit lieu de F. that his.said cuirasses he should make bring to.the.said place F. ‘that his said cuirasses he should have them brought to the said place of Ferieres’ (1432,218)
Chapter 4. Analysis 197
Finally there were three occurrences of fronted infinitives that were analysed as bearing a topic reading. Consider (99) as an example, retaken here as (177)
(177) senz ce que des dites chevilles faire faire s’entremist
without that of.the said dowels make make REFL.commenced ‘without him commencing to have the said dowel made’(1359,190)
All three groups have in common that the fronted topic constituent is not doubled by a coreferential pronoun. Thus, the topicalizations displayed here are not cases of clitic left dislocations or of Hanging Topics, since the latter always requires a coreferential pronominal element in the core part of the sentence. Recall the derivations of the examples that were given in (7): (178) as an example of a combination of a Hanging Topic with a frame setter and (179) as an example of clitic left dislocation.
(178) [FrameP1 Nousi [FrameP2 en ce moment [TP çai va très bien]]]
(179) [ThemeP1 Henrii [ThemeP2 au cinéj [TP ili yj va plus]]]
According to Benincà and Poletto (2004), left dislocation requires a resumptive clitic pronoun only when they correspond to direct or partitive object; the clitic is optional in other cases and impossible if the type of argument has no appropriate clitic. Thus, for fronted infinitives bearing a topic reading as in (177), the analysis as an instance of left dislocation seems plausible, since it corresponds to cases where the coreferential pronoun is optional.
Yet, how can the cases of (175) and (176) be analysed where a resumptive pronoun appears to be obligatory? One might wonder if in Old French, cases of clitic left dislocations are found at all. As Mathieu (2013) illustrates, there are cases of clitic left dislocation in Old French and of different types of fronted topic constituents, e.g. subjects and direct objects; yet, none of his examples is taken from an embedded clause and none implies a partitive object. Apparently, the lack of the resumptive pronoun excludes both analyses, as a Hanging Topic or as Theme Topic. However, for the latter, the obligatoriness of a pronominal copy appears to be less strict, as illustrated above. Furthermore, in (175) the fronted item is a PP and therefore an implausible candidate for being a Hanging Topic. Finally, since, from a pragmatic point of view, both topic constituents correspond to an aboutness topic, thus illustrating what the sentence is about, both are analysed as Theme Topics rather than Hanging Topics. The corresponding derivations of (175) and (176) are illustrated in (180) and (181) respectively.
Chapter 4. Analysis 198
(180) [ForceP pour ce que [ThemeP de cei [TP icele Marion se doulousoit ti moult]]]
(181) [ForceP que [ThemeP sesdictes cuirassesi [TP il voulsist fere porter ti audit lieu de Ferieres]]]
In (177), the derivation is somewhat more complex because, with regard to the fronting, the direct object of the verb is at the left of both fronted infinitives. First, one needs to figure out whether this is an instance of multiple fronting. Second, assuming one single fronted constituent, its internal word order needs to be explained before accounting for its fronting. In the context of Mathieu (2006, 2013) frontings of the type of (177) are taken to be instances of multiple frontings, i.e. of the parallel fronting of an X° and an XP. With regard to the double infinitive construction faire faire to the right of the fronted XP, such an analysis appears to be implausible because the X° would be composed of two infinitives. Rather, wanting to maintain Mathieu’s (2006, 2013) approach for (177), the order object-infinitive within the presumed XP needs to be explained. Various authors have accounted for similar word orders in Medieval French (Salvesen 2011, Zaring 2011, Labelle and Hirschbühler in press) and other Old Romance varieties (Poletto 2014) by assuming that the respective complements are moved to the left of the corresponding head by short scrambling within vP/VP. While most of the authors do not address the question of what triggers scrambling, Poletto (2014) suggests that it is due to information-structural encoding within the left periphery of vP. This question is not discussed here in detail but the assumption is pursued that the word order within the fronting occurrence is an instance of short scrambling. Hence, in order to account for the sequence des dites chevilles faire, the derivation given in (182) is assumed.
(182) [VP des dites chevillesi [VP faire ti]]
After the merge of the infinitive, the PP des dites chevilles is moved to its left. In order to account for the further derivation of (177), two analyses are possible.
On the one hand, following Mathieu (2006, 2013), this derivation is assumed:
(183) [ForceP senz ce que [ThemeP [des dites chevillesi [faire ti]]k [Theme fairej [TP
s’entremist tj tk]]]]
After the first step given in (182), a second infinitive faire is merged, followed by the verb s’entremis-. The latter moves to TP in order to check for person and number features. Finally,
Chapter 4. Analysis 199 the simple infinitive faire is moved to the Theme head and the sequence given in (182) is moved to the specifier of ThemeP.
On the other hand, by following Salvesen (2011), Labelle and Hirschbühler (in press), and Poletto (2014), the derivation given in (184) and (185) is obtained.
(184) [VP des dites chevillesi [VP faire [VP faire ti]]]
(185) [ForceP senz ce que [ThemeP [des dites chevillesi [faire [faire ti]]]j [TP s’entremist tj ]]]
(184) details the scrambling procedure on which (185) is based. The PP des dites chevilles is not moved before the second infinitive faire is merged. After that s’entremis is merged and moves to TP in order to check its person and number features. Finally, the whole remnant vP/VP is moves to the specifier of ThemeP.
To summarize the present section, here is a brief recourse to the introductory remarks about the availability of Main Clause Phenomena in the subordinate contexts discussed here. One of the most prominent properties discussed for Medieval French is V2 in main clauses (proposed, for instance, by Adams 1987; Benincà 2006; Roberts 1993, and Vance 1997 among others and challenged by Kaiser 2002; Rinke and Meisel 2009, and Sitaridou 2012 among others). Since V2 is not the topic of the present study, the question has not been addressed. In the derivation of the examples given in the present section, the finite verb remains within TP in order to facilitate the reading of the derivation and the multiple traces. However, all the examples in the present section can likewise be analysed as involving movement of the finite verb to the left periphery. Within recent approaches to V2 in Medieval French, the finite verb moves a least as high as Fin° or to the head of the projection to which the element in the first position has moved to (Steiner 2014). If the latter is assumed, this is an argument in favour of a derivation as in (185) and against the one given in (183), since in the former, the head of ThemeP is available to host s’entremist. Consider (186) as an exemplary derivation of a V2 analysis of (177).
(186) [ForceP senz ce que [ThemeP [des dites chevillesi [faire [faire ti]]]j [Theme°/Fin°
s’entremist [TP tk tj ]]]]
Furthermore, remember that the split CP given in (36) in (163) and retaken here as (187) was adopted.
Chapter 4. Analysis 200
(187) [ForceP [MoodP {Topic [FrameP* [ThemeP* [Rci1P {Focus [ContrastFocP* [Rci2P [NInformFocP
[VerumFocP [ModP [FinP [TP ]]]]]]]}]]]}]]
The parts of this split CP given here are maintained for further analyses in relative and comparative clauses.
4.3.2 Relative clauses and comparative clauses
Recall that the accessibility of the left periphery is restrained or completely blocked according to the analysis of the status of the relative clause items qui and que which one takes as basis for the further study. Rizzi and Shlonsky (2007), among others, defend the more prominent one of relative que and qui analysed as complementizers or rather a cohesion of a complementizer and an expletive element. This implies that the CP cannot be split and that the left periphery is blocked. Therefore, in order to analyse fronted items in relative clauses along the lines of Rizzi and Shlonsky (2007), Labelle and Hirschbühler (in press) suggest that that they are hosted by a functional phrase within the TP layer between Subj° and T°. In contrast, Sportiche’s (2011) analysis of weak relative clause items leaves a part of the CP accessible for other items depending on where the weak relative clause items are merged. In (36), slightly modified above in (187), two possible projections for the relative clause items have been suggested: Rci1P and Rci2P. Rci1P corresponds to a projection above the focus field but below the topic field, hence the position that Ledgeway (2012) suggests for the Int(errogative) projection. This choice would be in conformity with the observed common inventory of weak interrogative and weak relative pronouns. Rci2P corresponds to the locus where Benincà (2006) situates the IntP: within the Focus field and below the first focus projection. Hence, for a conclusive syntactical analysis of fronted items in relative clauses, there are either only a small part of the left periphery or positions below CP at our disposal. In order to survey which of the two analyses matches best with the presented data, a syntactical explanation of our findings on the information structure of the fronted items for both approaches is sketched.
The present section is divided in two parts. First, both analyses of fronted adverbials within relative clauses are outlined. With regard to the phenomenon discussed as “Stylistic Fronting” recall that with respect to relative clauses, no intervention effects are expected since Main Clause Phenomena are not assumed to play a role here. Hence, for the syntactic analysis of “Stylistic Fronting” configurations please refer to the second part of the present section, where the analysis of fronted focus constituents is sketched and an account of the structure of the left
Chapter 4. Analysis 201 periphery of relative clauses is provided for this data. To conclude this part, the few frontings that correspond neither to adverbials nor to foci will be considered under the light of the evolution of left edge of relative clauses.
4.3.2.1 Adverbs and adverbials
Comparing the results of the syntactical analysis of fronted adverbs and adverbials in other subordinate contexts to the observation of a limited left periphery in relative clauses, one notes that two of three different landing sites of fronted adverbials are no longer available: accordingly, the fronted items analysed as frame setters or sentence adverbials and directly merged to the corresponding positions FrameP and MoodP in the split CP cannot be derived in relative clause contexts due to the split CP of these contexts given in (188).
(188) [Rci1P {Focus [ContrastFocP* [Rci2P [NInformFocP [VerumFocP [ModP [FinP [TP ]]]]]]]}]
With respect to such a qui-split CP approach, two questions need to be solved. On the one hand, it needs to be checked whether all fronted adverbials in relative clauses correspond to adverbials other than sentence adverbs or frame setters in the sense of Frey (2003), on the other hand, the question is whether an analysis of multiple frontings of adverbials is possible.
Of the six sentence adverbs mentioned above in section 4.2.2.6, four occurrences are found in relative clauses introduced by qui. There are two occurrences with fronted bien ‘well’ and two with fronted pareillement ‘likewise’. For both types, it has been suggested above that they can be analysed to bear a focus reading, namely a verum focus reading for bien and a focus that highlights parallels for pareillement. Hence, the few occurrences of sentences adverbs in relative clauses do not exclude a qui-split CP analysis as proposed in (188) above. With regard to temporal adverbials, there are 25 occurrences of fronted temporal adverbs and 13 occurrences of fronted temporal PPs found in relative clauses. In order to know whether the split CP given in (188) can be maintained or needs to be adapted, one needs to determine whether these adverbials are frame setters or event-related temporal adverbials in the sense of Frey (2003). Recall that according to Cinque’s (1997) hierarchy, the temporal heads are assumed to be hosted by functional projections below the CP layer. Accordingly, the fronting of lors et depuis ‘then and since’ given in (158) can be analysed as a frame setter or as an event-internal adverbial. The derivation of the latter is illustrated in (189).
Chapter 4. Analysis 202
(189) [ForceP pour ce que [ModP lors et depuisk [TP ycellui Jaqueminj [T° confessai [vP tj
[v’ tk [v° ti [VP ti que]]]]]]]]
In contrast to derivation as a frame setter given in (161), the derivation in (189) allows to account for frontings of the type of lors et depuis in relative clause contexts. Of the 25 fronted temporal adverbs, 16 correspond to lors and 3 to depuis. The others are toujours, oncques mais, ja, jamais and encores (twice). Of the 13 temporal PPs, 5 have the same semantic content as lors and 3 the same as depuis; in two occurrences the semantic content expressed by the PP corresponds to toujours. The remaining three express anteriority (twice) and posteriority. For all, an event-related analysis can hence be justified and the exemplary analysis of fronted adverbials in a relative context given in (190) within a qui-split CP approach would be as illustrated in (191).
(190) un nommé Jehan Bradecheau, anglois, qui par avant estoit demourant audit lieu de Toucque a named Jehan Bradecheau, English, who before was residing at the said place of Touques (1424,55)
(191) [Rci1/2P qui [ModP par avantj [TP [T° estoiti [vP [v’ tj [v° ti demourant audit lieu de Toucque]]]]]]]
Note that for the analysis of adverbials fronted to ModP it does not matter if the relative clause item is situated in Rci1P or Rci2P.
With respect to multiple frontings of adverbials, note that there are no occurrences of multiple frontings combining two frame setters. Four are combining an adverbial with a CP as in (192) and one combines a fronted adverbial bearing a verum focus with an adverbial. For the latter, see the discussion in the upcoming section on fronted constituents bearing focus.
(192) les lettres closes d'icelui de Percy, qui lors, come l'en dit, furent receues par la femme dudit viconte pour l'absence d'icelui son mary the sealed letters of this de Percy, which then as one says, were received by the wife of the viscount because of the absence of her husband. (1429,197)
With regard to (192), one could replace the CP come l’en dit by an adverb such as prétendument ‘allegedly’. Hence, the question would be how this occurrence can be analysed within a qui-
Chapter 4. Analysis 203 split CP approach. There appear to be two options: either ModP is considered to be recursive and can host more than a fronted adverbial or a strategy is adopted, used by some approaches, to account for multiple “Stylistic Fronting”, i.e. scrambling and remnant Movement of VP (Salvesen 2011; Labelle and Hirschbühler in press). Lors is a frame setter whereas prétendument is a categorical sentence adjunct. Hence, according to Frey (2003), the relative order of the adverbials would be prétendument lors. A scrambling and remnant movement approach would therefore be excluded, since, with Frey (2003) and Cinque (1997), prétendument is assumed to be merged above VP. On the other hand, if ModP is taken to be recursive, the analysis would not fit with results found above in the section on frontings in other subordinate contexts where the instances of multiple fronting consisted of two truly fronted adverbials. Those results confirmed the relative order MoodP – FrameP – ModP of frame setters within CP. Hence, with respect to multiple frontings in relative clauses, it is concluded that apparently fronted CPs as found in (192) are not instances of fronting but rather instances of free adjunction within relative clauses. The derivation is given in (193).
(193) [Rci1/2P qui [ModP lors [TP [CP come l'en dit] [TP furent receues]]]]
Under an approach that analyses qui as a combination of the complementizer que and an expletive i along the lines of Rizzi and Shlonsky (2007), the left periphery is not accessible for fronted items. In order to account for the position of la semaine prochaine in the Modern French example in (194)177, Rizzi and Shlonsky (2007) postulate the availability of a ModP located between FinP and TP and assume that the head of ModP and the Subj head can be freely ordered.
(194) L’homme qui, la semaine prochaine, partira en Italie The.man who the following week will.leave to Italy
The structure for (194) is given in (195).
(195) [Force qu- [Fin° -i [Subj [ModP la semaine prochaine [TP partira en Italie]]]]]
The ungrammaticality of the corresponding example with a pronominal subject in a matrix clause given in (196), taken from Rizzi and Shlonsky (2007: 139), is explained by the need of the clitic pronoun il to be adjacent to TP, thus yielding the basic order given in (197).
177 Taken from Rizzi and Shlonsky (2007: 139).
Chapter 4. Analysis 204
(196) * Il, la semaine prochaine, partira en Italie.
(197) [ModP [SubjP il [TP ]]]
Hence, with regard to this data and the findings on the type of the fronted adverbials made above, the derivation of the data is illustrated in the following for the fronting of a manner adverbial of the context given in (91) retaken here as (198).
(198) deux personnes a cheval qui app(er)tement chevauchoient sur le dit pais two persons on horseback who adroitly rode across the said country. (1359,166)
The corresponding derivation is given in (199).
(199) [Force qu- [Fin° -i [Subj [ModP appertementj [TP chevauchoienti [VP sur le dit pais tj
ti ]]]]]]
The predicate-related adverbial appertement is merged to the left of the base position of the verb in the VP. Next, the locative sur le dit pais is merged. The verb moves to T in order to check the person and number features. Finally, the adverbial moves to the lower ModP before the complex of relative qu(e)+i is merged.
With regard to multiple fronting, refer to the conclusion made above; the corresponding derivation within the que+i-approach is given in (200).
(200) [Force qu- [Fin° -i [Subj [ModP lors [TP [CP come l'en dit] [TP furent receues]]]]]]
To summarize the syntactical analysis of fronted adverbials in relative clauses, one notes that in order to explain the frontings of adverbials in this data, there is no need to assume a full split CP for Medieval French relative clauses. As one has seen, both analyses, the one assuming a restricted split CP for relative clauses and the other following Rizzi and Shlonsky’s (2007) que+i-assumption, can account for the data. With respect to multiple frontings in relative clauses, one needs to assume additionally, either, that the respective landing projection can be recursive or that scrambling within VP and remnant movement of VP are available. In summary, regarding the data of fronted adverbials, both analyses appear to be possible.
Chapter 4. Analysis 205
4.3.2.2 Foci
Taking a look at the types of fronted items analysed as foci within the previous section, with regard to relative and comparative clauses, one finds adverbs, complements, infinitives, and participles. Furthermore, if occurrences are taken into account, where a light verum focus reading can be assumed, there are also adjectives and predicative expressions. Thus, the elements generally assumed to be subject of “Stylistic Fronting” are analysed as bearing a consistent information-structural value, namely a focus reading, and within this broader category the majority of the fronted items are analysed to bear a verum focus reading. In the following, fronted items in relative clauses that cannot be analysed as pure adverbials moved to the left periphery to ModP are considered to be instances of Verum Focus Fronting instead of “Stylistic Fronting”.178
With regard to previous analyses of “Stylistic Fronting”, note that the analysis as Verum Focus Fronting confirms the findings of the two analyses that assume an information-structural value of the fronted items. Both, Fischer (2010, 2014) and Mathieu (2006, 2013) suppose that the stylistically fronted elements have already been mentioned in the previous discourse and, therefore, are items bearing a certain anaphoricity. Mathieu (2006, 2013) concludes from this observation that the fronted elements share the semantics properties of appositives with the result that the focus corresponds to the remaining embedded material and not the fronted item. This assumption can partially be combined with a verum focus fronting approach in so far as, within this approach, it is likewise not the fronted element but the polarity of the whole sentence which bears focus reading and thus yields a verum focus interpretation. Fischer (2010, 2014) suggests that the fronted items are emphasized in a special way since their positive emphatic, and at the same time given, character doesn’t permit an alternative reading. In fact, this description of the information-structural properties of the fronted items paraphrases the definition of verum focus given above. Labelle and Hirschbühler’s (in press) approach is the only one which, items after a detailed analysis, ascribes a neutral pragmatic value to the stylistically fronted. With respect to their findings that the information-structural role of the fronted items is not consistent, a reason for this result may be that they do not distinguish between different clausal contexts in which the frontings occur, thus, in embedded clauses
178 The few instances are dealt with below that were not analysed as bearing a verum focus but as new information or contrastive focus reading, or even a topic reading.
Chapter 4. Analysis 206 exhibiting Main Clause Phenomena, they potentially compare instances of topicalization to verum focus fronted elements.179
When turning to the syntactical analysis of verum focus frontings, the first matter to address is whether both accounts for the placement of the subject relative clause item qui can be maintained. Remember that Rizzi and Shlonsky’s (2007) analysis of qui as a combination of the complementizer que in the Force head and an expletive i in the Fin head results in a blocking of the left periphery, whereas the analysis of Sportiche (2011) assumes the split CP to be partially accessible. With regard to the assumption made above that verum focus is hosted by a verum focus projection in the lower part of the split CP, the latter analysis appears to be clearly favoured.180 Accordingly, the focus field (or parts of it) is accessible for fronted constituents and, therefore, a parallel analysis of verum focus fronted elements in relative, comparative and other subordinate contexts is possible. Thus, the remaining analysis is based on Sportiche (2011) and the resulting structure is given in (188), retaken in (201).
(201) [Rci1P {Focus [ContrastFocP* [Rci2P [NInformFocP [VerumFocP [ModP [FinP [TP ]]]]]]]}]
For the analysis, the following examples are considered as an exemplary selection, (40) retaken here as (202), (137) retaken as (203) and (119) retaken as (204).
(202) les autres lettres closes qui a lui se adressoient
the other sealed letters which to.him REFL addressed (1429,197)
(203) la villenie que faite li estoit en la personne de sa femme the vileness which made to.him was in the person of his wife (1359,177)
(204) lui qui point ne veoit
he who not NEG see (1359,252)
For (202), the derivation would be as follows: within the VP layer the verb is merged to the complement a lui. Then the former moves together with the cliticised reflexive pronoun se to
179 Consider for instance their examples (11) to (19) (cf. Labelle and Hirschbühler in press) used to account for an inconsistent informational role of the fronted element in question. 180 Note that within a cartographic approach of the left periphery, which is assumed by Rizzi and Shlonsky (2007), too, verum focus is always taken to be located within the CP layer. Recall that Leonetti (2010) tends towards an analysis within TP but does not commit himself on the issue.
Chapter 4. Analysis 207
TP in order to check for person and number features. After that, a lui moves to the specifier of
VerumFocP in order to check the activated VERUM feature. Finally, qui is merged to RciP. Consider (205) for the corresponding structure of the derivation.
(205) [Rci1/2P qui [VerumFocP a luii [TP se adressoient ti]]]
For (203), the structure of the derivation is given in (206).
(206) [Rci1/2P que [VerumFocP faitej [TP li estoit [VP tj en la personne de sa femme]]]]
At the VP layer, the verb fai- is merged to the pronoun li and to the adverbial en la personne de sa femme. The pronoun moves to T were it cliticises on the passive auxiliary estoit. Thereupon, the participle faite as the verbal head moves to the head of VerumFocP in order to check the
VERUM feature. Finally, qui is merged to RciP. The analysis as head movement instead of a scrambling and remnant movement approach follows Fischer (2010, 2014) and Mathieu (2006, 2013). Note that a scrambling and remnant movement analysis of (203) is likewise possible. In this case, the analysis is based on Ott (2009) and Salvesen (2011) according to whom CPs and other heavy elements, therefore possibly DPs and PPs, may be extracted out of the vP and adjoined to the very edge of vP while the infinitive stays in in the head v°. After the scrambling, only vP without its uppermost scrambling position is targeted by remnant movement. Hence, for the present example, the PP en la personne de sa femme would be extracted out of vP and ajoined to the edge of vP. The participle faite stays in the head of v°. Instead of head movement to VerumFoc, the vP without its leftmost edge is moved to the specifier of VerumFocP in order to check the VERUM feature. This alternative derivation is given in (207).
(207) [Rci1/2P que [VerumFocP faitej [TP li estoit [vP [en la personne de sa femme]i [vP [v° tj
ti]]]]]]
For (204), the first step of the derivation is the merge of the verb and the adverb point in the VP. Next, the verb moves to the TP in order to check for person and number features. After that, the adverb moves to the specifier position of the Verum FocP in order to check the VERUM feature. Finally, qui is merged to RciP.
(208) [Rci1/2P qui [VerumFocP pointj [TP ne veoiti [VP tj ti ]]]
With regard to the previous analyses of “Stylistic Fronting”, some issues need to be addressed in order to check for overlaps with this account.
Chapter 4. Analysis 208
The trigger of Verum Focus Fronting is addressed first. It is assumed that a VERUM operator in the sense of Romero and Han (2004), Romero (2006), and Leonetti and Escandell-Vidal (2009) needs to be checked within the Verum FocP and, therefore, triggers Verum Focus Fronting.
As noted for the analysis of (203) above, both a head and a phrasal movement account is possible within the scope of the present account. However, recall that Salvesen (2011) and Labelle and Hirschbühler (in press) reject the assumption of the former and note that, for some orders of multiple frontings, accounts that combine head movement and phrasal movement do not work, since the expected order would be XP – X° but some frontings exhibit an XP – XP or an X° – XP order. In order to check this observation, the only occurrence of multiple fronting implying a verum focus found in a relative clause is considered, namely the example given in (87), already discussed in (120) and retaken here as (209).
(209) ledit suppliant […] qui bonnement d’illec ne povoit eschapper
the said supplicant who not of.there NEG could escape sanz mort without death (1360,322)
From a descriptive point of view one can say that in (209) two XPs are fronted to the left of the finite verb and the negative marker ne. However, the question is whether those XPs are both fronted by Verum Focus Fronting or whether this implies to two different operations. From an information-structural point of view, it seems plausible to assume that for a verum focus reading only one constituent is fronted, since an informational partition is not expected within a clause bearing a verum focus reading. Hence, one would rather consider a scrambling and remnant movement analysis in the sense of Salvesen (2011) and Labelle and Hirschbühler (in press). Recall that bonnement was taken as an adverb expressing manner. The same can be said about the PP sanz mort, whereas d’illec is a locative. Hence, according to Frey (2003), the relative order of the adverbials corresponds to the one given in (210).
(210) d’illec [bonnement sanz mort]/[sans mort bonnement]
The basic word order within the VP is given in (211).
(211) [VP d’illec [bonnement [sanz mort [eschapper]]]]
Chapter 4. Analysis 209
Next, the scrambling takes place. First, bonnement is scrambled to the left of d’illec. Second, sanz mort moves to a position to the left of bonnement to the leftmost edge of the VP, in order to make a remnant movement of bonnement and d’illec possible.181 Finally, the verb moves to the head of vP. For the derivation of the intermediate steps of scrambling, consider (212).
(212) [vP [v° eschapperk [VP sanz mortj [VP bonnementi [VP d’illec ti tj tk]]]]]
Next, the modal is merged to T and checks the person and number features, and the negation marker ne is merged. Finally, the remnant VP is moved to the specifier of VerumFocP in order to check the VERUM feature. Finally, the relative clause item qui is merged. Consider (213) for the complete derivation.182
(213) [RciP qui [VerumFocP [VP bonnementi d’illec ti tj tk]l [TP ne povoit [vP [v° eschapperk
[VP sanz mortj tl ]]]]]]
However, one might also argue that the fact that (209) is the only instance of multiple fronting implying a verum focus found in a relative clause might be due to the weakening of the information-structural requirement of no informational partition during the ongoing loss of these fronting occurrences. Thus, (209) could be analysed as implying two different operations, namely the fronting of the adverbial d’illec to ModP, followed by the fronting of bonnement to VerumFocP. The corresponding derivation is given in (214).
If ModP is assumed to be recursive, the derivation would be as follows:
(214) [Rci1/2P qui [VerumFocP bonnementk [ModP d’illecj [TP ne povoit [vP [v° eschapperi [VP
tj tk sanz mort ti]]]]]]]
The manner adverbials need to minimally c-command the base position of the main predicate. Therefore, sanz mort, bonnement and d’illec are merged to the left of the base position of eschapper. Next, eschapper is moved to the head of vP. The modal povoit is merged to T° and checks the person and number features. After that, d’illec moves to the specifier of ModP. Next, bonnement moves to the specifier of VerumFocP in order to check the VERUM feature. Finally, qui is merged to RciP. To summarize these findings with regard to the question whether a
181 Here, this follows Labelle and Hirschbühler (in press) and their discussion of a similar example in their (55). 182 Recall that the choice to note the base positions of the corresponding elements by a tx instead of a the notation copy of x was made in order to support ease of reading in these complex derivations.
Chapter 4. Analysis 210 combined head and phrasal movement analysis or a mere phrasal movement account fits better with our data, it is notable that for the presented data, both approaches are possible.
In order to confront possible criticism, one now examines the few occurrences of fronted participles and arguments in relative clauses that do not bear a verum focus reading. There is one fronted participle with a contrastive focus reading, given in (111) and retaken in (215), and another with a new information focus reading, given in (108) and retaken in (216).
(215) la main qui mise a esté esdis biens the hand which put has been on.the.said goods.(1357,4)
(216) pour la pluie qui cheue estoit le dit jour because of the rain which fallen had the said day (1359,121 )
Recall that mise can be analysed to be the only occurrence of a fronted participle bearing a contrastive focus. However, a verum focus reading analysis was also considered possible. Furthermore, the occurrence is special since it was not found in the narratio part of the corresponding LDR but in the injonctio part. With respect to cheue, remember that together with another fronted infinitive in the same LDR it is the only example bearing some kind of secondary focus reading, which leads to the conclusion that the fronting of cheue and of its counterpart in a comparative clauses are variants exclusively used by the scribe of the corresponding LDR.183 Hence, one can conclude that both occurrences of fronted participles found in relative clauses that were not analysed as bearing a verum focus reading are exceptions possibly due to the ongoing loss of the structure. This may explain the potential verum focus readings established for both occurrences but rejected because of a stronger information- structural effect. With regard to the split CP and the projection hosting the relative clause item, this conclusion leads us to the suggestion that a reduced split CP as given in (217) is sufficient to map our data.
(217) [RciP [VerumFocP [ModP [FinP [TP ]]]]]
183 Note that a verum focus reading was considered, too, by taking the relative head la pluie together with cheue as a weather paraphrase combining a light verb and a weather noun in the sense of Bleotu (2013). Cheue could then be considered to be active, thus possibly yielding a verum focus reading. However, the idea was rejected for being remote in contrast to the present analysis.
Chapter 4. Analysis 211
In comparison to (201), the RciP does correspond neither to a projection above the Focus field, where Rci1P was located according to Ledgeway (2012), nor to a projection above NInformFocP, where Rci2P was situated according to Benincà (2006).
However, in the preceding sections there are four occurrences that were classified as being topic constituents. Therefore, (217) can only be taken to be valid for the relative clauses of this data, if there are explanations for these occurrences. On the one hand, there are two fronted direct object DPs bearing a topic reading, initially given in (104) and (105) and retaken in (218) and (219).
(218) le dit capitaine qui les dites chevilles n’avoit pas oubliees re[menda] au dit Colin que tantost et sanz delay il li envoiast les dites chevilles
The said captain who the said dowels NEG had not forgotten ordered the said Colin to send him immediately and without any delay the said dowels (1359,190)
(219) Et si tost comme la premiere fu faite les gens d’armes et autres estanz ou fort de la dite ville firent mettre le fevre qui la dite cheville avoit faite en prison fermee. And as soon as the first was made, the men-at-arms and others being at the fort of the said town put the forger who the said dowel has made to locked prison (1359,190)
As can be seen, both fronted DPs are found in LDR 1359,190 and correspond to la/les dite(s) cheville(s). The use of the preceding dite(s) marks the fronted elements as given and active in the discourse. Consequently, both DPs were analysed as topic constituents. However, note that these are the only frontings bearing a topic reading in relative clauses. Since LDR 1359,190 is the only letter written by the scribe in question, one could draw the same conclusion as for (216) and the fronted participle cheue before, namely that the availability of topic constituents in relative clauses is restricted to this scribe.
Finally, there were two instances of topic constituents of the type a/de+ ce. They were initially given in (95) and (96) and are retaken in (220) and (221).
(220) a touz autres […] qui a ce donnerent conseil confort et aide to all others who at this gave advice, assistance and help (1358,61)
Chapter 4. Analysis 212
(221) Lequel suppliant dist audit Pinchart, son cousin, les choses dessusdictes, qui de ce fut desplaisant This supplicant said to the said Pinchart, his cousin, the above-said things, who about this was distressed (1423,5)
Both, a ce and de ce were analysed as being topic constituents. There were no suggestions for other possible information-structural analyses made. Apparently, the only possible conclusion is to take both as instances of intraspeaker variation.
For the first part of the presented corpus, there are three scribes that allow different information- structural roles for fronted elements, two being consistent, namely the scribe of LDR 1359,121 by using secondary focus as in (216), and the scribe of 1359,190 by using fronting to mark a topic reading as in (218) and (219). The third scribe allows both, focus and topic reading, as illustrated by (215) and (220), which were both written by the same scribe. For the second part of this corpus there is only one occurrence exhibiting a different reading, namely the one given in (221). This evolution can make one think of another possible interpretation of these fronted variants that do not exhibit verum focus fronting. One could interpret this variation as an indication of the on-going loss, perhaps a kind of intermediate step of a reanalysis, of the left periphery of relative clauses by the speakers. Two story lines appear to be possible. On the one hand, the speaker re-interpreted the possibility of having verum focus fronting in relative clauses and in other subordinate clauses allowing Main Clause Phenomena as an evidence for a general accessibility of the left periphery in relative clauses and therefore considered the fronting of topics to be possible in relative clauses. On the other hand, independent from that, or in addition to it, the few occurrences that do exhibit a contrastive or new information focus reading might be taken as a merest hint that the projection hosting the relative clause items was located before higher up in the left periphery, at the position of Rci2P or Rci1P as illustrated in (201) above.
In conclusion, here are the results of the present section on the syntactical analysis of fronting in relative clauses. On the one hand, all adverbials that previously were considered as frame setters or modifiers in section 4.2 were analysed as being hosted by the specifier of ModP. With respect to other fronted constituents in relative clauses, it was shown that a majority bore a verum focus reading and hence should be analysed as being hosted by VerumFocP. Concerning the type movement implied in this Verum Focus Fronting, both, a head movement and a scrambling and remnant movement approach, were illustrated to be possible. The same holds
Chapter 4. Analysis 213 for the single occurrence of multiple fronting in the data, although the latter was considered to fit better the information-structural request of a verum focus context. The structure of the left periphery of the relative clauses of this corpus was suggested in (217) and is retaken in (222).
(222) RciP [VerumFocP [ModP [FinP [TP ]]]]]
However, the existence of a few occurrences that cannot be analysed based on this structure, leads to assuming that there was not only an ongoing loss of frontings in general but also an evolution within the left periphery of relative clauses. Furthermore, when taking a brief look at the use of bien as a verum focus marker in this data, apart from the fronted bien discussed above, there are three occurrences of bienVERUM for the first period and 9 occurrences of bienVERUM for the second period.184 Hence, although, this needs to be confirmed by more intensive research within other corpora, one might suppose a parallel evolution of the marking of verum focus in Medieval French.
4.3.3 Matching the analyses and remaining issues
From a descriptive point of view, one can summarize the present approach to the left edge of embedded clauses in Medieval French as an analysis that assumes different types of movement (focus movement, topicalization) and base generations (frame setters, sentence adverbs) to yield an apparently similar word order at the left edge. Does that mean that one distinguishes different types of what is generally assumed to be an instance of “Stylistic Fronting” as Molnár (2010) and Labelle and Hirschbühler (in press) do?
In the present approach, the occurrences considered to be instances of “Stylistic Fronting” are taken as frontings that produce a verum focus reading of the whole embedded sentence. The different information-structural values distinguish the different types of fronting which are syntactically analysed as implying different discourse features. These need to be checked within different projections into which the left periphery is assumed to be split up.
For the present data, in relative and comparative clauses, information-structural partition appears to be marginal, since a verum focus fronting requires that the corresponding sentence
184 The occurrences were found in the following LDR: 1358,43; 1359,202; 1360,255; 1423, 1423,19; 1424,56; 1424,68; 1427,161; 1427,176; 1433,229.
Chapter 4. Analysis 214 is not informationally structured beyond (Leonetti and Escandell-Vidal 2009).185 In contrast, other embedded clause types do allow informational partition: apart from verum focus frontings, there are sentence adverbs, frame setters and topics at the left edge in this data. With respect to the incompatibility of verum focus fronting and multiple frontings, recall that for the single occurrence of an apparent multiple fronting implying verum focus in relative clauses, a scrambling and remnant movement analysis was assumed. For other clause contexts, there were no multiple frontings in conjunction with a verum focus reading. Yet, consider the following example initially given above in (129) and retaken here as (223).
(223) Lesqueles choses venues a la congnoissance d'icelui exposant, veant que nosdiz adverseres a grant puissance estoient par tout le pais These things (having) come to the knowledge of this exponent, seeing that our said adversaries at major power were everywhere in the country (1431,203)
For the syntactical analysis of this occurrence, it was assumed that the subject bears a potential topic reading and moves to the specifier of ThemeP in order to check for the corresponding feature as shown in (174), retaken here as (224).
(224) [ForceP que [ThemeP nosdiz adverseresj [VerumFocP a grant puissancek [TP tj estoienti
[VP tj [V’ par tout le pais [V’ ti tk ]]]]]]]
This assumption was justified by the evident marked activation of the constituent in the discourse as indicated by the use of nosdiz ‘our said’. Above, the question was left open whether, and to which extent, this analysis can be combined with the “no information-structural partition” prerequisite of verum focus fronting. Since there are only a few occurrences of SXV orders in this data, of which the one given in (223) is the only one implying a verum focus fronting, one could argue as was done above, for the few occurrences of fronted topic constituents found in relative clauses, that they are an instance of intraspeaker variation. However, recall that Labelle and Hirschbühler (in press) note a relatively high frequency of SXV orders, namely 9% of their overall data for both, embedded and matrix contexts, throughout the medieval period. Even if some of these occurrences described as being SXV
185 Recall that the few occurrences that exhibit information structural values other than verum focus were analysed as being a result of intraspeaker variation.
Chapter 4. Analysis 215 orders probably do not imply verum focus fronting but some other type of movement to the left periphery186, one cannot exclude that there are also frontings implying a verum focus reading.
In order to exclude a further information-structural partition of embedded clauses as in (223), one must therefore assume that the subject and, thus, also the verum focus fronted constituent are not moved to the left periphery.
Recall that Leonetti (2010: 342) tends towards an analysis within TP by suggesting that within a simple structure (“una estructura muy simple”), i.e. a minimalist approach, verum focus might be hosted by a multifunctional projection (“una posición ‘multiuso’”), probably within the specifier of the TP (“el especificador del Sintagma Flexión”). Evidence for the availability of this position comes from Landau (2007), who suggests an alternative approach to the EPP. This approach is based on Holmberg’s (2000) assumption that the EPP corresponds to a feature labelled [P] that must be satisfied by a phonologically visible element. Landau (2007) considers [P] to be a pure PF constraint, whose effects are always phonologically visible and, thus, cannot be satisfied by a null element. [P] is taken to be satisfied by selection and therefore subject to locality (by elements of the complement or the specifier of the head bearing [P]) and headedness, i.e. the head of the phrase satisfying [P] needs to be phonetically realized. Since [P] is subject only to PF, Landau (2007) assumes that it cannot trigger movement on its own but depends on some other feature to attract a category. Therefore, pure satisfaction of [P] is taken to be possible only by external merge of an expletive. In order to account for the satisfaction of the EPP in null subject languages, Landau (2007) adopts Alexiadou and Anagnostopoulou’s (1998) approach and supposes that [P] is parasitic on verbal agreement features supposed to check the same features as an overt subject by V-to-T-raising. Furthermore, in these languages, preverbal subjects are considered to occupy an Ā-position distinct from Spec,TP.187 Hence, the postulation of a null element as pro would be redundant and Spec,TP could be taken to be available to host elements moved there to check a feature independent from [P] and its anchoring feature.
186 Recall that Labelle and Hirschbühler (in press) do not distinguish between different types of embedded contexts and that some of their occurrences analysed as implying “Stylistic Fronting” need to be reconsidered, e.g. as topicalizations. 187 Note that Landau (2007) assumes, based on Alexiadou and Anagnostoppulou (1998), that the choice between a head and a phrase that satisfy [P] on T is parametric.
Chapter 4. Analysis 216
As for Medieval French, it is widely acknowledged that to a certain extent, an active null subject property can be taken for granted, whereas it is likewise admitted that the loss of this property was effected by the end of the period. Compare for instance Adams (1987), Roberts (1993) and Vance (1997) and, for some restrictions on the null subject property and its distribution across genre and registers, consider Balon and Larrivée (2014), Fischer (2010), Kaiser (2009), and Zimmermann (2014), among others. Thus, for Medieval French, one can consider [P] to be checked by verbal agreement and Spec,TP to be available to host a verum focus fronted element that checked an independent [VERUM] feature on T.188 Consider the following example in (225) for a derivation within this approach
(225) [CP comme [TP promis [T° l’avoit]]]
Avoit is considered to check the [D] and [Agr] features on T, whereas promis moves to the specifier of TP in order to check a [VERUM] feature on T. Within this analysis, one could account for SVX orders implying verum focus fronting as (223) above by assuming the preverbal subject to occupy an Ā-position distinct from Spec,TP, as said above.
Due to the ongoing impoverishment of verbal agreement throughout the Medieval French period, the verum focus fronted elements entered into competition with overtly realized subjects that gradually took over the checking of the D and Agr feature on T, previously checked by V- to-T-movement.189 With regard to the satisfaction of [P], one might wonder if the verum focus fronting could assume this task just as “Stylistic Fronting” in Icelandic in contexts with a subject gap (Landau 2007: 511). The parallels between both appear to be evident, recall, however, that even for the comparatively late occurrences found in this data, one could provide an information-structural motivation of the fronting, i.e. verum. In contrast, for Icelandic “Stylistic Fronting”, Landau (2007) follows Holmberg (2000) by supposing that it is purely phonological and that it assumes the same function as the Icelandic expletive það does. Hence, verum focus fronting cannot take over the satisfaction of [P] because it is only available in contexts with an activated [VERUM] feature on T. However, this observation does not exclude that some speakers
188 It follows from the analysis of the verum focussed element moving to Spec,TP that the fronting assumed here must be an instance of XP-movement, probably implying a scrambling and remnant analysis for some occurrences as illustrated in sections 4.3.1 and 4.3.2. 189 With respect to the loss of rich verbal agreement and an ongoing persistence of the null subject property consider Kaiser’s (2009) analysis of the null subject property in Brazilian Portuguese, where the null subject property remains stable although the verbal agreement impoverishes.
Chapter 4. Analysis 217 might have reanalysed verum focus fronting as “Stylistic Fronting” when other means were available to express verum focus (e.g. bienVERUM). This could be another possible explanation for the few exceptions discussed above.190
Before turning to the conclusion of the present study, here is a brief sketch of some further consequences of an analysis based on Landau (2007) that are relevant for the subject of the present study.
First, with respect to the ungrammaticality of verum focus fronting in Modern French, one can conclude that verum focus fronting got lost when the overt subjects took over the checking of the D and Agr feature on T completely. Before this moment there might have been a weakening of verum focus fronting due to an increasing use of structures expressing verum focus by the insertion of a bienVERUM. Kaiser (2009) shows a certain persistence of null subject property for Brazilian Portuguese with respect to the loss of rich verbal agreement. With respect to Medieval French one could assume that the competition of verum focus and overt subjects lasted for several centuries, probably because the change of parametrical choice, i.e. whether a head or a phrase satisfies [P] on T is uncoupled from the loss of verbal agreement. A further possible impact comes from the fact that Medieval French is transmitted in written form, which leads to the assumption that the acquisition of literacy via Latin texts at the time (Bäuml 1980) entailed a certain conservation of structures that were available in both languages (see also Buridant 2003).
Second, regarding the position and the analysis of the relative clause item qui, if one assumes that the verum focus operator is hosted by a head within the TP layer, one can perfectly consider an analysis that supposes that the CP is blocked within relative and comparative clauses in Medieval and Modern French. Such an analysis would confirm a recent analysis of Main Clause Phenomena by Haegeman (2014), who presumes that the restriction of these phenomena to some embedded contexts cannot be explained by a reduced left periphery. Instead, she takes Main Clause Phenomena to be excluded from clausal domains that are derived by a movement of a TP-internal clause-typing operator to the left periphery. Such a movement would violate locality conditions on movement by having a wh-operator that crosses a fronted argument.
190 At that moment, neither a topic reading nor a secondary information focus reading is expected.
Chapter 4. Analysis 218
Finally, combining the latter point with the analysis of the relative clause item qui, there are observations that indicate that a reanalysis of a relative pronoun qui to a complementizer qu combined with an expletive i in the sense of Taraldsen (2002) and Rizzi and Shlonsky (2007) could be motivated. Barme (2010) suggests that in French relative clauses of the type given in (226) result from a reanalysis in Medieval French.
(226) Je vois Paul qui travaille I see Paul who works
Barme (2010) suggest that these predicative or pseudo relative clauses were initially a pragmatically marked construction of a proleptic accusative combined with a complement clause that was frequently imitated in translation of the Vulgata. According to Barme (2010), the pragmatic markedness of the construction consists of it characterising the action or the situation as a fact. The corresponding initial structure of (226) is given in (227).
(227) Je vois Paul qu’il travaille I see Paul that.he works.
Hence, the reanalysis of qu’il to qui assumed by Barme (2010) could have caused speakers to reanalyse the relative pronoun qui as being a combination of a complementizer qu and an expletive i. Although such an assumption is highly speculative and deserves further research, there is one occurrence in this data with a fronted item, where qui is expected as the relative clause item introducing a subject relative clause but found que. Consider (137) and (203) retaken here as (228) for details.
(228) la villenie que faite li estoit en la personne de sa femme the vileness which made to.him was in the person of his wife (1359,177)
One could either simply take it as a mistake of the scribe or consider it to indicate a competition of the expletive i with the verum focus fronted participle faite for the Spec,TP position.
5. Summary and conclusions 219
5. Summary and conclusions
The purpose of this dissertation is to reassess the composition of the left edge of embedded clauses in Medieval French by paying particular attention to configurations commonly analysed as “Stylistic Fronting”. In this respect, several issues have been discussed controversially in the literature: the necessity of a ‘subject gap’191, the relation between V2 and “Stylistic Fronting” with regard to embedded clauses, the influence of fronting configurations on information structure, the syntactic analysis, and the question of the trigger of this phenomenon. For this purpose, data from a corpus of narrative juridical material (remission letters) of the 14th and 15th century are evaluated in order to provide an extensive description of different configurations at the left edge of relative, comparative, and other subordinate contexts from a structural and a functional point of view. Based on these results, the present study provides a novel analysis of “Stylistic Fronting” in Medieval French which is argued to be an instance of Verum Focus Fronting.
Chapter 2 introduces the corpus and the methodology on which the present investigation relies. For the present research issues, the prerequisites of a corpus were elaborated, namely to provide a large set of entire prose texts that were already edited. Furthermore, variation should be avoided as much as possible by selecting texts of the same genre, written in the same dialect, and for which a contextualisation of their genesis, i.e. identification of the date, the place and the scribe, is possible. This led me to turn away from already existing on-line corpora providing a syntactical annotation and made me choose the genre of Lettres de rémission as part of the corpus Français légal de Normandie hosted by the CRISCO research centre at the university of Caen. The socio-political context, the characteristics of the genre, and the linguistic interest of Lettres de rémission are then fully considered. In total, 99 Lettres de rémission were selected for this corpus from two different periods (1357-1360 and 1423-1433).
In the second part of the chapter, the principles of data annotation are defined. The basic notions of syntax are called upon for the grammatical coding. The categories to be used for the annotation of information structure, however, require two issues to be addressed first. On the one hand, the coding of information-structural properties of historical data is ambiguous. On the other hand, only little research addresses the information structure of embedded contexts.
191 The subject corresponds in this case either to a null subject or to a relative pronoun.
5. Summary and conclusions 220
After discussing current research on both topics, an annotation procedure is established based on previous work on main clause discourse referents.
In Chapter 3, the results of the structural and functional evaluation are presented. With regard to the syntactic properties, relative and comparative clauses are described extensively and a general typology of the properties of these clauses is proposed. In relative clauses, the majority of fronting contexts are without an overtly realized subject (XV). Contexts with a fronted constituent preceding both the subject and the finite verb (XSV) represent the large majority of the remaining cases, whereas there are almost no cases of configurations where the subject precedes both the fronted constituent and the finite verb (SXV). For comparative clauses, XSV configurations represent the majority of all fronting configurations, XV configurations correspond to one-third of all data, and SXV configurations are, as in relative clauses, rare. For both clause types, an important shift is observed with regard to the function of the fronted constituent. Adjuncts increase and represent over 80% of all data for the second period whereas VP constituents decrease accordingly. With respect to fronting in other subordinate contexts, the XSV configurations remains the largest, and the proportion of configurations without overt subjects (XV) hold a stable second place. SXV configurations appear at higher rates than in relative and comparative clauses but still represent less than 7% of the overall data. In contrast to the previous clause types, adjuncts represent about two-thirds of the overall data.
Testing the developed pragmatic coding procedure on the actual corpus proved a challenge. This was due to the nature of some of the fronted constituents as examined above. Indeed, the informational status of adjuncts, predicative expressions, or non-finite verb forms is seldom addressed in the literature. However, looking at these categories was crucial in order to assess the information-structural pressure of “Stylistic Fronting”. The procedure needed to be adjusted. The coding of the information structure was thus limited to coding the status of the information that the fronted items displayed within an informational continuum of givenness. The elements were coded as given, accessible, or new. Since the reference point of some of the fronted constituents was the Lettre de rémission itself, I introduced a fourth label: metalinguistic. Furthermore, the use of an anaphor within the fronted constituent was taken into account by introducing anaphoricity as a second level of annotation. With regard to relative and comparative clauses, frontings in XV configurations display a wide range of informational statuses, whereas the other two configurations almost exclusively imply fronted constituents bearing a new information status. This is also true for the frontings in other subordinate contexts
5. Summary and conclusions 221 for the first period, while for the second period there is a balanced proportion of new and given elements in SXV configurations. However, further findings in chapter 3 illustrate the interpretative limits of the coding givenness and anaphoricity in information structure. An alternative approach on some fronted items suggests a reconsideration of the data. This analysis was postponed to chapter 4.
Chapter 4 is divided into three parts. First, an extensive overview of previous research on the two main areas investigated by the dissertation is provided by concentrating on work on (Medieval) Romance languages. On the one hand, studies on the left periphery of main and embedded clauses are considered. They concern the articulation of the left periphery within the cartographic approach, and the accessibility of the left periphery in different embedded clause contexts. On the other hand, previous accounts of “Stylistic Fronting” are reviewed. The second part of chapter 4 reconsiders the contribution of fronted constituents to information structure based on the notions of information structure established by Krifka (2008). The three types – topics, foci and frame setters – are represented by the fronted items in the corpus, with a large majority of frame setters in both periods. While fronted constituents bearing a topic reading are almost192 exclusively found in other subordinate contexts, frontings producing a verum focus reading in the sense of Höhle (1992) are found across all three clause types. There are only few occurrences that exhibit another focus reading (new information focus or contrastive focus, for instance), assumed to be due to intra-speaker variation. However, none of the three statuses fit the observable properties of some of the occurrences. I observed that, in the majority of those problematic occurrences, the fronted items relate to the lexical field of justice and deal with the very matter of Lettres de rémission thus having a metalinguistic function. This new function is a novel methodological contribution of this dissertation to the field of historical information structure study. The third part of the chapter provides a syntactic analysis of different fronting configurations in embedded clauses. Since the distribution of the different configurations across relative and comparative clauses were on a par and differed from other subordinate contexts, two main analyses are provided. On the one hand, for other subordinate clauses, which are identified as embedded contexts allowing main clause phenomena, the analysis is carried out by assuming a fully accessible left periphery along the lines of the cartographic approach. On the other hand, for relative and main clauses, a restricted availability of the left periphery is
192 The few occurrences elsewhere are probably due to intra-speaker variation of the scribe.
5. Summary and conclusions 222 suggested. The corresponding subordinating items are assumed to be hosted by a projection within the focus field, leaving only the lower area of the left periphery including a verum focus projection open to host fronted constituents. Accordingly, one can account for the distribution of topic constituents that were found in other subordinate clauses but only as an exception in relative and comparative clauses. Finally, remaining issues are addressed. There was one occurrence of a SXV configuration bearing a verum focus reading that together with similar findings of Labelle and Hirschbühler (in press) challenged the proposed account. Hence, an alternative approach was made suggesting that Verum Focus Fronting does not necessarily involve the left periphery but may be confined to the specifier position of TP if this projection is available as a landing site. It was shown that this can be assumed to be the case for Medieval French for which a null subject property is attested to a certain extent (depending on registers and text genres). Due to an ongoing loss of verbal inflection as the main prerequisite for the null subject property throughout the medieval period, I assumed a fierce competition for the specifier of TP as a landing site by both verum focus fronted constituents as well as overt subject taking over the checking of features from verbal inflection. This account predicts some advantageous consequences. On the one hand, the assumption that the left edge of relative and comparative clauses is limited to the left edge of the TP layer conforms to a recent account of Haegeman (2014) on the restriction of main clause phenomena. On the other hand, the interrelation of the availability of Verum Focus Fronting and the null subject property appears to correspond to the crosslinguistic distribution of Verum Focus Fronting as, for instance, in Spanish (Leonetti and Escandell-Vidal 2009). Furthermore, ostensible parallels between Verum Focus Fronting and Stylistic Fronting in Icelandic and Old Mainland Scandinavian could be explained by our analysis since the landing site, assumed to host both types of fronted elements, is the same.
To sum up, by relating positional variation to information structure, new insights on the composition of the left edge in embedded clauses in Medieval French and especially for the phenomenon commonly labelled as “Stylistic Fronting” could be gained. These include a consistent approach to the informational role of the fronted constituents, which together with a careful distinction between different embedded clause contexts leads to a differentiated account of fronting phenomena in embedded clauses, and to the adoption of Verum Focus Fronting as an active phenomenon in Medieval French.
5. Summary and conclusions 223
In the present study, our attention was limited to Medieval French texts from the 14th and 15th century. Given that “Stylistic Fronting” has been discussed crosslinguistically for (Old) Romance varieties, more research on the information structure of these configurations needs to be done, using the dual decision procedure regarding syntactic positions and information- structural status developed here. Furthermore, the conclusions of the present investigation gives fresh impetus to the discussion of (a persistence of) the null subject property in Medieval French, and on the duration of parametric change.
In conclusion, the study of the left edge of embedded clauses in Medieval French proposed here has brought the following contributions to the field:
− it has elaborated a method of identifying information structure in historic data and has tested it on real data closer to the primary linguistic input, allowing to discover new categories (metalinguistic);
− it has shown that structures in Medieval French considered to be instances of “Stylistic Fronting” have a categorical information-structural status (verum focus) unlike the canonical “Stylistic Fronting” found in Icelandic and Old Mainland Scandinavian and may contain overt subjects;
− it has established that information structure may be marked by the lower shell (TP) rather than the discursive CP projection;
− it has provided an explanation for the restricted distribution of different types of fronting in relative and comparative clauses.
It is to be hoped that the important results achieved in the present work contribute to renewing the field of Romance linguistics as a laboratory for the understanding of language change.
Zusammenfassung 224
Zusammenfassung
Ziel der vorliegenden Dissertation ist es, den Aufbau und die Zusammensetzung des linken Satzrandes von eingebetteten Nebensätzen im mittelalterlichen Französisch zu untersuchen. Dabei liegt ein besonderes Augenmerk auf Strukturen, die in der bisherigen Forschung als Fälle von ‚Stylistic Fronting‘ kontrovers diskutiert wurden. Umstritten sind diesbezüglich mehrere Punkte: die Notwendigkeit einer ‚subject gap‘193, der Zusammenhang zwischen V2 und ‚Stylistic Fronting‘ insbesondere im Hinblick auf eingebettete Sätze, der Einfluss der Voranstellungen auf die Informationsstruktur, die syntaktische Analyse und die Frage nach der Motivation dieses Phänomens. Basierend auf der Auswertung von Daten aus einem Korpus von narrativen juristischen Texten (Lettres de rémission) aus dem 14. und 15. Jahrhundert bietet die vorliegende Arbeit eine detaillierte syntaktische und pragmatische Beschreibung von unterschiedlichen Strukturen am linken Satzrand von Relativ- und Komparativsätzen sowie von anderen Nebensatztypen. Darauf aufbauend werden ‚Stylistic Fronting‘-Strukturen im mittelalterlichen Französisch als Instanzen von ‚Verum Focus Fronting‘ analysiert.
Kapitel 2 diskutiert die Grundlagen der vorliegenden Arbeit und stellt das Korpus und die verwendeten Untersuchungsmethoden vor. Basierend auf den Anforderungen der Studie werden zunächst die Grundvoraussetzungen an ein Korpus herausgearbeitet. So sollen als Grundlage Prosatexte dienen, die ediert und in vollständiger Fassung vorliegen und eine große Datenmenge bieten. Darüber hinaus sollen mögliche Ursachen für Variation vermieden werden, indem auf eine Textgattung aus demselben Dialektraum zurückgegriffen wird. Zudem soll diese eine Einordnung der Texte bezüglich ihrer Entstehung, also eine Datierung und Verortung der Texte sowie die Identifikation des Schreibers, ermöglichen. Infolgedessen wurde ein Teil des Korpus Français légal de Normandie194, nämlich Lettres de rémission195, als Ausgangsbasis für die Untersuchung ausgewählt. Der soziopolitische Rahmen, die Eigenschaften und das Interesse der Gattung für die sprachwissenschaftliche Forschung werden ausführlich diskutiert. Insgesamt bilden 99 Lettres de rémission aus zwei unterschiedlichen Zeiträumen (1357-1360 und 1423-1433) das zugrunde liegende Korpus. Im zweiten Teil des Kapitels werden die Prinzipien für die Annotation der Daten etabliert. Für die grammatische Kodierung kann auf
193 Das Subjekt entspricht entweder dem Relativpronomen oder ist nicht overt. 194 Zur Verfügung gestellt vom Forschungszentrum CRISCO an der Universität Caen Normandie. 195 Eine Art Gnadenbrief, jedoch nicht in Brief- sondern in Urkundenform mit einem hohen Anteil an narrativem Text.
Zusammenfassung 225 grundlegende syntaktische Kategorien zurückgegriffen werden. Aus informationsstruktureller Sicht müssen zunächst zwei grundlegende Probleme thematisiert werden: Historische Daten erlauben einerseits oftmals keine eindeutige Kodierung, andererseits werden die besonderen informationsstrukturellen Eigenschaften von eingebetteten Nebensätzen kaum in der Forschung diskutiert. Nach einer Erörterung der Forschungslage zu beiden Themen wird ein Kodierungsprotokoll etabliert, welches vorwiegend auf Arbeiten zur Annotierung von Diskursreferenten in Hauptsätzen beruht.
In Kapitel 3 werden die Ergebnisse der strukturellen und funktionalen Auswertung vorgestellt. Relativ- und Komparativsätze werden mit Blick auf ihre syntaktischen Eigenschaften ausführlich beschrieben. Der überwiegende Teil der Voranstellungen in Relativsätzen beinhaltet kein overt realisiertes Subjekt (XV). Die restlichen Fälle gehören mehrheitlich zu der Gruppe mit einer dem Subjekt und dem finiten Verb vorangestellten Konstituenten (XSV). Fälle, in denen das Subjekt vor der vorangestellten Konstituente (SXV) steht, sind selten. In Komparativsätzen stellt die Gruppe der XSV-Voranstellungen die Mehrheit dar. Fälle mit einer XV-Struktur entsprechen etwa einem Drittel der Daten, eine SXV-Wortstellung tritt wiederum nur in Einzelfällen auf. Für beide Satztypen ist festzuhalten, dass zwischen beiden Untersuchungszeiträumen eine Verlagerung in Bezug auf die Funktion der vorangestellten Konstituente beobachtet wird. Der Anteil der Adjunkte nimmt stark zu und entspricht über 80% der Daten des zweiten Abschnittes, während der Anteil von vorangestellten VP-Konstituenten entsprechend zurückgeht. Im Hinblick auf Voranstellungen in anderen Nebensatztypen bilden auch dort die XSV-Voranstellungen die Mehrheit, während die XV-Gruppe stabil an zweiter Stelle bleibt. SXV-Voranstellungen sind häufiger als in Relativ- und Komparativsätzen, entsprechen aber dennoch nur 7% der Gesamtdaten. Im Gegensatz zu den beiden anderen Satztypen liegt der Anteil von Adjunkten stabil bei etwa zwei Dritteln aller Fälle. Der Annotierungspozess und die Auswertung der pragmatischen Eigenschaften erwiesen sich als Herausforderung. Dies war in der Natur einiger vorangestellter Elemente begründet. Diese werden in der Regel nicht als Diskursreferenten betrachtet und können mit gängigen Methoden der pragmatischen Kodierung nicht erfasst werden. Da Adjunkte, Prädikativa oder nicht finite Verbformen jedoch gemeinhin als Kategorien betrachtet werden, die im Rahmen des ‚Stylistic Fronting‘ vorangestellt werden können, ist eine informationsstrukturelle Analyse dieser Kategorien von zentraler Bedeutung, um Aussagen über den Einfluss von ‚Stylistic Fronting‘ auf die Informationsstruktur treffen zu können. Die Vorgehensweise bei der Annotierung wurde dahingehend angepasst, dass einzig der informationelle Status der von den vorangestellten
Zusammenfassung 226
Element transportierten Information analysiert wurde und zwar als durch den Diskurskontext gegeben (given) oder herleitbar (accessible) oder als neue Information. Da der Referenzpunkt von manchen vorangestellten Elementen der Text selbst war, wurde zudem die Kategorie metasprachlich (metalinguistic) als vierte Variable eingeführt. Darüber hinaus wurde der Gebrauch von Anaphern innerhalb der vorangestellten Konstituente durch eine entsprechende Notierung als zweite Annotationsebene eingeführt. In Relativ- und Komparativsätzen legen XV-Voranstellungen eine Vielzahl an unterschiedlichen informationellen Status an den Tag, wohingegen die beiden anderen Typen (XSV und SXV) beinahe ausschließlich neue Voranstellungen beinhalten. Dies gilt auch für andere Nebensatztypen im ersten Zeitabschnitt, während für den zweiten Untersuchungszeitraum im Fall von SXV-Voranstellungen die Verteilung zwischen neuen und gegebenen Voranstellungen ausgewogen ist. Indes zeigen weitere Ergebnisse die Grenzen dieser Vorgehensweise auf: eine andersartige Annäherung an ausgewählte Voranstellungen legt eine nochmalige Prüfung der Daten nahe. Diese Analyse wird auf Kapitel 4 verschoben.
Kapitel 4 ist in drei Teile gegliedert. Zunächst wird ein ausführlicher Überblick über den Forschungsstand der beiden Hauptgebiete der vorliegenden Dissertation gegeben. Der Fokus liegt hierbei auf Arbeiten zu (mittelalterlichen) romanischen Sprachen. Einerseits werden Studien zur linken Satzperipherie von Haupt- und Nebensätzen berücksichtigt, welche die linke Peripherie im Rahmen des kartografischen Ansatzes und die Verfügbarkeit der linken Peripherie in unterschiedlich eingebetteten Kontexten näher beleuchten. Andererseits werden vorherige Darstellungen zu ‚Stylistic Fronting‘ in Betracht gezogen. Der zweite Teil des vierten Kapitels beschäftigt sich mit der Überprüfung des informationsstrukturellen Beitrags von Voranstellungen basierend auf Grundüberlegungen zur Informationsstruktur von Krifka (2008). Die drei Typen – ‚Topik‘, ‚Focus‘ und ‚Frame Setter‘ bzw. ‚Modifiers‘ – finden sich unter den Voranstellungen im Korpus wieder, wobei ‚Frame Setter‘ die große Mehrheit in beiden Zeiträumen darstellen. Während vorangestellte ‚Topik‘ fast ausschließlich196 in der Gruppe der anderen Nebensätze gefunden werden, sind Voranstellungen, die ein ‚Verum Fokus’-Effekt im Sinne von Höhle (1992) haben, in allen drei Gruppen vertreten. Es finden sich nur wenige Fälle von Voranstellungen, die eine abweichende ‚Fokus‘-Lesart haben. Auch diese können mit sprecherinterner Variation erklärt werden. Jedoch entsprechen die
196 Die wenigen Ausnahmen können als Instanzen von intrasubjektiver, sprecherinterner Variation erklärt werden.
Zusammenfassung 227 informationsstrukturellen Eigenschaften mancher Voranstellungen keinem der drei Typen. In der Mehrheit dieser problematischen Fälle beziehen sich die Voranstellungen auf das Wortfeld von Recht und Ordnung und befassen sich also mit dem Selbstzweck von Lettres de rémission. Für sie wird der Begriff einer metalinguistischen Funktion eingeführt. Die Einführung dieser neuen Funktion ist ein methodologischer Beitrag der Dissertation auf dem Gebiet der Untersuchungen zur Informationsstruktur in historischen Texten. Der dritte Teil des Kapitels befasst sich mit der syntaktischen Analyse der unterschiedlichen Voranstellungstypen in Nebensätzen. Da die Verteilung der unterschiedlichen Voranstellungen in Relativ- und Komparativsätzen gleich ist und von der in anderen Nebensatztypen abweicht, wurden zwei Analysen erstellt. Einerseits wurde für andere Nebensatztypen, als eingebettete Kontexte, welche so genannte ‚Main Clause Phenomena‘ erlauben, eine voll zugängliche linke Satzperipherie angenommen und die Analyse gemäß den Leitlinien des kartografischen Ansatzes durchgeführt. Abweichend davon wurde von einem eingeschränkten Zugang zur linken Peripherie in Relativ- und Komparativsätzen ausgegangen. Es wird angenommen, dass die jeweiligen Subjunktionen innerhalb des ‚Fokus‘-Feldes angesiedelt sind, so dass für Voranstellungen in diesen Sätzen lediglich der untere Bereich der linken Peripherie, der eine ‚Verum Fokus‘-Projektion beinhaltet, zur Verfügung steht. Diese Analyse ermöglicht eine Erklärung für die unterschiedliche Verteilung der drei informationsstrukturellen Typen innerhalb der unterschiedlichen Satzgruppen. Abschließend werden offen gebliebene Fragen thematisiert. Im Korpus findet sich ein Fall einer SXV-Voranstellung mit einer ‚Verum Fokus‘- Lesart, welche zusammen mit ähnlichen Funden von Labelle und Hirschbühler (im Druck) die dargestellte Analyse in Frage stellt. Infolgedessen wurde eine alternative Analyse vorgeschlagen, nach welcher Voranstellungen vom Typ ‚Verum Focus Fronting‘ nicht notwendigerweise am linken Satzrand zu verorten sind, sondern an die Spezifizierer-Position der TP gebunden sind, solange diese zur Verfügung steht. Es wurde gezeigt, dass letzteres für das mittelalterliche Französische, aufgrund einer Null-Subjekt-Eigenschaft, die für diese Variante des Französischen zu einem gewissen Grad (abhängend von Register und Gattung der Texte) nachgewiesen ist, angenommen werden kann. Aufgrund des Verlusts der Verbflektion als Hauptvoraussetzung für die Null-Subjekt-Eigenschaft, der über das Mittelalter hinweg andauerte, wird angenommen, dass sowohl ‚Verum Fokus‘-Voranstellungen als auch overte Subjekte, welche die Aufgaben der Verbalflektion zu einem gewissen Grad übernehmen, um diese Position konkurrieren. Eine derartige Analyse beinhaltet einige vorteilhafte Konsequenzen. Einerseits entspricht die Annahme, dass sich der linke Satzrand von Relativ-
Zusammenfassung 228 und Komparativsätzen auf den linken Rand der TP-Ebene beschränkt, einer neueren These von Haegeman (2014) zur Beschränkung von ‚Main Clause Phenomena‘. Andererseits scheint der Zusammenhang zwischen der Verfügbarkeit von ‚Verum Focus Fronting‘ und der Null- Subjekt-Eigenschaft der sprachübergreifenden Verteilung von ‚Verum Focus Fronting‘ zu entsprechen (vgl. zum Spanischen Leonetti und Escandell-Vidal (2009)). Außerdem können augenscheinliche Parallelen zwischen ‚Verum Focus Fronting‘ und ‚Stylistic Fronting‘ im Isländischen und alten Sprachstufen anderer skandinavischer Sprachen durch die vorliegende Analyse erklärt werden, da für beide Arten der Voranstellung dieselbe Landeposition bei unterschiedlicher Motivation angenommen wird.
Zusammenfassend konnte die vorliegende Arbeit durch die Verbindung von Beobachtungen zur Syntax und Informationsstruktur neue Einblicke in die Zusammensetzung und den Aufbau des linken Satzrandes von Nebensätzen im mittelalterlichen Französischen erlangen, insbesondere im Hinblick auf ‚Stylistic Fronting‘. Dazu gehört ein stimmiger Ansatz für die Analyse der informationsstrukturellen Eigenschaften von Voranstellungen, welcher zusammen mit einer klaren Unterscheidung zwischen unterschiedlichen Nebensatztypen die differenzierte Darstellung von Voranstellungsphänomenen in Nebensätzen und die Übernahme von ‚Verum Fokus Fronting‘ als aktives Phänomen im mittelalterlichen Französisch zur Folge hat.
Die vorliegende Dissertation beschränkt sich auf die Untersuchung von Texten im mittelalterlichen Französisch des 14. und 15. Jahrhunderts. Da ‘Stylistic Fronting’ sprachübergreifend auch für andere romanische Sprachen diskutiert wurde, ist eine Ausweitung der hier entwickelten Methoden auf ältere Sprachstufen und andere romanische Varietäten wünschenswert. Darüber hinaus geben die Schlüsse der vorliegenden Untersuchung einen Anstoß für die Diskussion über die (Fortdauer der) Null-Subjekt-Eigenschaft im mittelalterlichen Französisch und über die Dauer von Parameterwandel.
Abschließend hat die hier vorgestellte Untersuchung von Voranstellungen in Nebensätzen im mittelalterlichen Französisch folgende Beiträge für das Fachgebiet geleistet:
− die Ausarbeitung einer Methode zur Identifikation von Informationsstruktur in historischen Daten und deren Anwendung auf Daten aus einem speziell entwickelten Korpus, was die Einführung einer neuen Kategorie zur Folge hatte (metalinguistic),
Zusammenfassung 229
− die Abgrenzung von pragmatisch neutralem ‘Stylistic Fronting’ im Isländischen zu ähnlichen Voranstellungen im mittelalterlichen Französisch, für die ein informationeller Status nachgewiesen werden konnte (‘Verum Fokus’) und die mit overten Subjekten kombiniert werden können,
− den Nachweis, dass Informationsstruktur auf einer Ebene unterhalb der diskursiven linken Peripherie markiert werden kann,
− eine Erklärung für die eingeschränkte Verteilung von unterschiedlichen Typen von Voranstellungen in Relativ- und Komparativsätzen.
Résumé 230
Résumé
L'objectif de cette thèse est d'étudier la composition de la périphérie gauche des propositions subordonnées en français médiéval. Un accent particulier est mis sur les structures d’antéposition stylistique (‘Stylistic Fronting'). À cet égard, plusieurs points ont été mis en cause dans la littérature: la nécessité d’un ‘subject gap’197, la relation entre V2 et l’antéposition stylistique notamment quant aux propositions enchâssées, l'influence des antépositions sur la structure de l'information, leur analyse syntaxique et la question de la motivation de ce phénomène.
Sur la base de l'analyse des données tirées d'un corpus de textes narratifs juridiques (Lettres de rémission) du 14ème et du 15ème siècle, la présente étude offre une description syntaxique et pragmatique détaillées des différentes structures à la périphérie gauche des propositions relatives et comparatives et d'autres types de subordonnées. À partir de cela, nous proposons une analyse des antépositions dites stylistiques comme un cas de verum focus (‘Verum Focus Fronting’).
Le chapitre 2 examine les fondements de la présente étude et introduit le corpus et la méthodologie utilisés. Les prérequis indispensables d’un corpus seront présentés : cela requiert un grand ensemble de données constitué(es) de textes en prose édités. En outre, afin d’éviter autant que possible des causes de variation linguistique, des textes d’un même genre et d’une même zone dialectale seront choisis. De plus, le type de texte devra offrir la possibilité de contextualiser les textes en fonction de leur origine en permettant ainsi la datation et la localisation des textes ainsi que l'identification de l'écrivain. Pour cela, nous avons décidé d’avoir recours à une partie du corpus Français légal de Normandie198, à savoir à des Lettres de rémission comme point de départ de l’étude. Le contexte socio-politique, les propriétés et l'intérêt de ce type de texte pour la recherche linguistique sont discutés en détail. Dans l'ensemble, notre corpus est constitué de 99 Lettres de rémission de deux périodes différentes (1357-1360 et 1423-1433). Dans la deuxième partie de ce chapitre, les principes de l'annotation des données sont établis. Pour le codage grammatical, nous pouvons recourir à des catégories syntaxiques fondamentales. Avant de présenter les principes de l’annotation de la structure de l’information, deux problèmes fondamentaux doivent être abordés. D’une part, les données
197 Le sujet correspondant ou à un sujet nul ou à un pronom relatif. 198 Mis à disposition par le laboratoire CRISCO de l‘université de Caen Normandie.
Résumé 231 historiques ne permettent souvent pas de codage univoque et d'autre part, la structure de l’information des propositions subordonnées n’est que rarement abordée dans la recherche. Après une discussion sur l'état de la recherche des deux sujets, un protocole de codage est établi, qui repose principalement sur des travaux se référant à l'annotation des référents de discours dans des propositions principales.
Le chapitre 3 présente les résultats de l'analyse structurelle et fonctionnelle. Les propositions relatives et comparatives sont décrites en détail quant à leurs propriétés syntaxiques. La majorité des antépositions dans les clauses relatives n’implique pas la réalisation ouverte du sujet, le sujet étant ou un pronom relatif ou un sujet nul (XV). Les cas restants forment dans la majorité partie du groupe combinant un constituant antéposé précédant le sujet et le verbe fini (XSV). Les cas où le sujet précède le(s) élément(s) antéposé(s) (SXV) sont rares. Dans les propositions comparatives, le groupe d’antépositions XSV représente la majorité. Les cas avec une configuration XV correspondent à environ un tiers des données et les cas d’ordre de mots SXV sont, tout comme pour les propositions relatives, rares. Pour les deux types de propositions il faut noter qu’entre les deux périodes d'étude, un changement est observé par rapport à la fonction du constituant antéposé. La proportion des circonstants augmente fortement et représente plus de 80% des données de la deuxième période, tandis que par conséquent, la proportion des constituants VP antéposés diminue. En ce qui concerne les antépositions dans d’autres types de subordonnées, le groupe XSV représente également la majorité alors que le groupe XV reste stable à la deuxième place. Les configurations SXV sont plus fréquentes que dans propositions relatives et comparatives mais correspondent seulement à 7% des données totales. Contrairement aux deux autres types de propositions, la proportion des adjonctions reste stable et représente environ deux tiers des cas. Le processus de codage et l'évaluation des propriétés pragmatiques se sont révélés être difficile. Cela est dû à la nature de certains éléments antéposés, qui en général, ne sont pas considérés comme des référents de discours et qui ne sont pas saisis par les méthodes classiques de l’analyse pragmatique. Cependant, comme les circonstants, les attributs et les formes verbales non-fléchies sont en général considérés comme des catégories ouvertes à l’antéposition stylistique, une analyse de la structure de l’information de ces catégories est d'une importance cruciale afin de pouvoir évaluer l'impact de ces antépositions sur la structure d'information des propositions en question. Le protocole de codage a été modifié en sorte que seul le statut informationnel de l’élément antéposé est analysé comme ou donné (given) ou rendu accessible par le contexte du discours ou de l’information nouvelle (new). Comme le point de référence de certains éléments antéposé était le texte lui-
Résumé 232 même, nous avons introduit une quatrième catégorie que nous avons labellisée métalinguistique (metalinguistic). En outre, l'utilisation d’anaphores au sein du constituant antéposé est prise en compte par un deuxième niveau d’annotation distinguant entre des éléments anaphoriques et non-anaphoriques.
Dans les propositions relatives et comparatives, les configurations du type XV comportent de différents statuts informationnels, alors que les deux autres types (XSV et SXV) impliquent presque exclusivement des éléments informationnellement nouveaux. Cela vaut également pour les autres types de subordonnées de la première période tandis que pour la deuxième période de l’étude, pour les cas SXV, la répartition entre les antépositions d’éléments nouveaux et d’éléments donnés est équilibrée. Cependant, les résultats démontrent les limites de la présente approche : un examen supplémentaire de quelques antépositions sélectionnées suggère une révision des données sous d’autres aspects. Cette analyse est reportée au quatrième chapitre.
Le chapitre 4 est divisé en trois parties. Dans un premier temps, un aperçu détaillé de l'état de la recherche dans deux domaines principaux de cette thèse est donné tout en mettant l’accent sur les langues romanes (médiévales). D'une part, les études sur la périphérie gauche des propositions principales et subordonnées sont prises en compte, ce qui inclut une discussion de l'approche cartographique et de la disponibilité de la périphérie gauche dans les différents types de subordonnées. D'autre part, les travaux antérieurs sur le phénomène de l’antéposition stylistique seront considérés. La deuxième partie du quatrième chapitre est consacré à l'examen de la contribution informationnelle des antépositions et se base sur les notions fondamentales de la structure de l'information établies par Krifka (2008). Les trois types – ‘topique’, ‘focus’ et ‘frame setter’ ou ‘modificateurs' – se retrouvent parmi les antépositions de notre corpus, la grande majorité étant des ‘frame setters’ dans les deux périodes. Alors que les topiques antéposés se trouvent presque exclusivement199 dans le groupe des autres subordonnées, les antépositions du type ‘verum focus’ dans le sens de Höhle (1992) sont représentées parmi les trois groupes. Il n'y a que quelques antépositions où le focus diffère de ce type, cela s’explique également par la variation intra-locuteur. Cependant, les propriétés informationnelles de certaines antépositions ne correspondent à aucun des trois types. Dans la majorité de ces cas problématiques, les antépositions se réfèrent au champ lexical de la justice et se consacre par conséquent à la fin en soi des Lettres de rémission. Pour ces cas, nous avons introduit le concept
199 Ces exceptions peuvent être expliquées comme des exemples de variation intra-subjective ou intra-locuteur.
Résumé 233 d'une fonction informationnelle ‘metalinguistic’. L'introduction de ce nouveau concept est une contribution méthodologique de la présente thèse dans le domaine des études sur la structure de l'information dans les textes historiques. La troisième partie du chapitre traite de l'analyse syntaxique des différents types d’antéposition dans les propositions subordonnées. Etant donné que la répartition des différents types d’antéposition est la même dans les propositions relatives et comparatives mais diffère de celle dans d’autres types de subordonnées, deux analyses sont élaborées. D'une part, nous avons adopté une périphérie gauche entièrement accessible dans le cas de d'autres types de subordonnées étant des contextes permettant des ‘Main Clause Phenomena’. Par conséquent, l'analyse se réalise selon les directives de l'approche cartographique. D’autre part, nous supposons que l’accès à la périphérie gauche soit restreint dans le cas des propositions relatives et comparatives. Cela est dû au fait que les subordonnants respectifs sont situés dans le champ focus (‘Focus Field’) de sorte que seule la partie inférieure de la périphérie gauche, qui comprend une projection ‘verum focus’, est rendu accessible pour les antépositions. Cette analyse permet une explication de la répartition divergente des trois notions informationnelles au sein des différents types de propositions. Pour finir, des questions en suspens seront abordées. Dans le corpus, il y a un cas de SXV impliquant un ‘verum focus’, qui, ensemble avec des données similaires de Labelle et Hirschbühler (sous presse) remet l’analyse présentée en question. Par conséquent, une analyse alternative est proposée, selon laquelle les antépositions du type ‘Verum Focus Fronting’ ne sont pas nécessairement situées à la périphérie gauche de la proposition mais peuvent être placées dans la position de spécificateur de TP si cette position est disponible pour accueillir des éléments. Comme la propriété sujet nul est attestée pour cette variante de la langue française (en fonction du type de textes et de registre), il a été démontré qu’une disponibilité de cette position peut être supposée pour le français médiéval. En raison de la perte de la morphologie verbale étant la condition principale pour la propriété sujet nul, qui a persisté tout au long du Moyen Âge, nous supposons que les antépositions à ‘verum focus' tout comme les sujets manifestes, qui prennent en charge certaines tâches de la flexion verbale, rivalisent pour la position du spécificateur de TP. Une telle analyse entraine des conséquences intéressantes. D'une part, l'hypothèse que la périphérie gauche des propositions relatives et comparatives est restreinte au ‘bord gauche’ de TP correspond à une hypothèse récente de Haegeman (2014) sur la restriction des ‘Main Clause Phenomena’. D'autre part, il paraît que le lien entre la disponibilité du ‘Verum Focus Fronting’ et de la propriété sujet nul correspond à la distribution interlinguistique du ‘Verum Focus Fronting’ (cf. pour l'espagnol, Léonetti et Escandell-Vidal (2009)). En outre, les parallèles apparentes entre
Résumé 234
‘Verum focus Fronting 'et ‘Stylistic Fronting’ en islandais d'autres variantes scandinaves anciennes peuvent être expliquées par la présente analyse, puisque pour les deux types d’antéposition, la même position d'atterrissage est supposée quoique la motivation du mouvement diffère.
En résumé, en combinant des observations au sujet de la syntaxe et de la structure de l'information, le présent travail propose de nouvelles généralisations sur la composition de l'ensemble de la périphérie gauche des propositions subordonnées en français médiéval, notamment en ce qui concerne l’antéposition stylistique. Cela inclut une approche cohérente à l'analyse des propriétés informationnelles des antépositions, qui, avec une distinction claire entre les différents types de propositions subordonnées, entraine la représentation différenciée des antépositions dans les propositions subordonnées et la proposition du ‘Verum Focus Fronting’ comme phénomène actif en français médiéval.
La présente thèse se concentre sur l'étude des textes du 14ème et 15ème siècle en français médiéval. Comme l’antéposition stylistique a été adoptée pour décrire des phénomènes semblables dans d'autres langues romanes, il serait souhaitable d’appliquer les méthodes développées dans le cadre du présent travail à d’autres variantes plus anciennes et à d’autres variétés romanes. En outre, les conclusions de cette étude donnent une nouvelle impulsion à la discussion sur la (persistance de la) propriété sujet nul en français médiéval et sur la durée de changements de ce paramètre.
En conclusion, la présente étude sur les antépositions dans les propositions subordonnées en français médiéval apporte les contributions suivantes :
− la mise au point d'un procédé pour identifier la structure de l’information contenue dans des données historiques et son application à des données à partir d'un corpus défini, entraînant l'introduction d'un nouveau concept (information métalinguistique) ;
− la délimitation de la configuration ‘Verum Focus Fronting’ en français médiéval, qui contrairement à la configuration du ‘Stylistique Fronting’ en islandais, a un statut informationnel (‘verum focus’) et qui peut être combiné avec des sujets exprimés ;
− la démonstration que la structure de l'information peut être marquée à un niveau inférieur à la périphérie gauche discursive (CP) ;
Résumé 235
− une explication de la distribution limitée des différents types d’antépositions dans des propositions relatives comparatives.
Nous espérons que les résultats substantiels dégagés par le présent travail contribueront à renouveler la linguistique romane comme laboratoire pour la compréhension du changement linguistique.
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On-line References
Français légal ancien de Normandie http://www.crisco.unicaen.fr/Francais-legal-ancien-de-Normandie.html
On-line Corpora Consortium international pour les corpus de français médiéval http://ccfm.ens-lsh.fr/ Anglo-Norman On-Line Hub http://www.anglo-norman.net/texts/ Base de Français Médiéval http://bfm.ens-lyon.fr/ Base textuelle du Dictionnaire Électronique de Chrétien de Troyes. http://www.atilf.fr/dect/ Base textuelle du Moyen Français http://www.atilf.fr/dmf/ Modéliser le changement: les voies du français http://www.voies.uottawa.ca/corpus_pg_fr.html Nouveau Corpus d'Amsterdam http://www.uni-stuttgart.de/lingrom/stein/corpus/ Syntactic Reference Corpus of Medieval French http://srcmf.org/ Textes de Français Ancien http://artfl-project.uchicago.edu/content/tfa
Consulted On-line Dictionaries Vocabulaire international de la diplomatique http://www.cei.lmu.de/VID/ Dictionnaire du Moyen Français (DMF) http://www.atilf.fr/dmf/
Further consulted websites Archives nationales – Trésor des Chartes http://www.archivesnationales.culture.gouv.fr/chan/chan/fonds/guideorientation/I-1- tresorchartes.htm R Project for Statistical Computing https://www.r-project.org/
Appendix A. Lettres de rémissions 1357 – 1360 252
Appendix A. Lettres de rémissions 1357 – 1360 fol. 1, n° 1. Gisors, 1357, juillet Gisors. français. Lettres de rémission pour Jean Fouace emprisonné à Montivilliers pour avoir gravement blessé au ventre Robin d’Orentot qui l’avait attaqué chez lui.
Charles, ainsné fils du roy de france, duc de normandie, dauphin de viennois, Savoir faisons A tous presens & avenir Que de la partie de Jehan fouace nous a esté exposé que comme Robin Dorentot meu de male volenté senz cause raisonnable envers ledit Jehan fust venu en la maison d’icellui ou il estoit paisiblement Et senz li deffier l’eust pris jeté & acablé a terre batu & villené moult villainement, Neantmoins ledit Jehan soy veiant ainsi batu & villené par le dit Robin comme dit est & pour doubte de mort prist un coutel que le dit Robin por-toit & en jeta a li par maniere de deffense sicomme il lui loisoit a faire & l’attaint ou ventre & navra Pour le quel fait Il fu pris & mis es prisons de nostre treschier et amé cousin le Conte de Eu & puis delivrés par recreance Depuis la quelle Il a esté pris & miz en noz pri-sons a monsterviller & encores est Pour ce que par le rapport des mires a esté rapporté aus chevaliers que en ladite navreure a mehaing jasoit ce que le dit Robin face toutes ses besoingnes comme homme sain ainsi comme il faisoit paravant. Et pour ce nous a humblement fait supplier que sur ce le weilliens pourveoir de nostre grace Mesmement que il a tousjours esté & encorez est homme de bonne vie renommee & conversacion honneste Et ce qu’il a fait Il a fait sur son corps deffendant comme dit est si comme il dit. Et nous / oye sadite sup-plicacion enclinans a ycelle & eue consideracion et regart aus choses dessuz dites avons audit Jehan quictié/ remis & pardonné & par la teneur de ces presentes lettres de nostre grace especial / et certaine science ou cas dessus dit sauf le droit de partie quittons / remectons et pardonnons le fait dessuz dit avecques toute pene corporelle criminelle & civile qu’il a ou puet pour ce avoir encouru envers nous en le delivrant a plain de ladite prison par ces presentes Si donnons en mandement par la teneur de ces presentez lettres Au bailli de Caux/ Au viconte de Monsterviller & a touz noz autres justiciers ou a leurs lieuxtenans et A chascun d’eulz si comme a lui appartendra qui a present sont & qui pour le temps avenir seront que ledit Jehan ou cas dessuz dit laissent & facent joir & user paisiblement de nostre presente grace Et contre la teneur d’icelle ne l’empeschent / contraignent ou molestent & ne sueffrent empeschier contraindre ou molester en corps ne en biens en aucune maniere en le delivrant aplain de ladite prison avecques tous ses biens se aucuns en estoient pris levez saisiz ou arrestez pour la cause dessuz dite en aucune maniere. Et pour ce que ce soit ferme chose & esta-ble a tous jours nous avons fait mettre nostre seel a ces presentez lettres Sauf en autres choses nostre droit & l’autrui en toutes. Donné a Gisors l’an de grace mccclvii. ou mois de juillet. Sign. es request. de l’ostel. G. de Soicourt. S.Pierre.
fol. 4r, n° 4, français. 1357, mai, Montivilliers. Lettres de rémission pour Jaquemin d’Aucoirre, changeur de Montivilliers, qui emprisonné pour avoir changé des florins rognés à Richard de Marueil, et liberé sous caution, n’a pas osé réintégrer sa prison, bien qu’il eût reçu l’ordre d’y retourner.
Charles ainsnez filz du roy de France, duc de Normandie & dalphin de Viennois savoir faisons a tous presens et avenir que de par Jaquemin d’Aucoirre changeur nous a esté exposé que comme environ la feste de Penthecouste prochaine aura quatre ans eust esté bailliee par ledit Jaquemin et par autres changeurs de la ville de Monsterviller a Richart de Marueil certaine quantité de florins pour autre menue mon. entre les quels florins en y ost trouvee X qui estoient rongniez. Les quels ledit Richart raporta audit Ja-quemin et li fist changier a autres florins lequel
Appendix A. Lettres de rémissions 1357 – 1360 253
Jaquemin pour occasion desdis florins rongniez dessusdis fu arresté et detenu prisonnier et yceuls florins rongniez mis en main de justice pour ce que lors et depuis ycellui Jaquemin confessa que il les avoit bail-liez audit Richart. Et il soit ainsi que combien que ledit Jaquemin fust delivré par caucion par eslargissement de prison a rendre touteffoiz que mestier seroit sur peine de estre convaincu et actaint du cas si comme il appartendroit par la coustume, touteffoiz ledit Jaquemin depuis ce pour doubte de longue prison et de rigoreuse justice combien que il se di[t] estre pur et innocent dudit fait n’a osé retorner ne soy rendre en ladicte prison jasoit ce que a li et a ses pleges ait esté fait savoir que il s’i rendist. Pour laquele chose ses dis pleges sont justiciez et molestez et les biens dudit Jaquemin pris et arrestez en tele maniere que il n’en puet joir ne yceuls possider. Si nous a supplié que sur ce li weilliens faire grace et misericorde ; mesmement comme il soit et ait tousjours esté de bonne vie et renommee et honneste conversacion si comme il dit ; nous adecertes eu consideracion aus choses dessuz dites enclinans a sa supplicacion A ycellui Jaquemin et a ses dis pleges le dit fait la desobeissance d’estre revenu en ladite prison et tout ce qui s’en est ensui[t] avecques toute peine criminele et civile que il puet ou pourroit pour ce avoir eu [...] comment que ce soit ou cas dessuzdit en nostre joieux advenement esdites parties avons quictié, remis et pardonné ; quictons, remectons et pardonnons a plain de grace especial et certaine science par la teneur de ces presentez. Et ycellui Jaquemin avons restitué a plain au paiz et a sa bone fame et renommee Si donnons en mandement a nostre viconte de Monstervillier et a tous noz autres justiciers ou a leurs lieuxtenans presens et avenir que ledit Jaquemin et sesdis pleges oudit cas facent et laissent joir et user paisiblement de nostre presente grace et contre la teneur d’icelle ne les molestent dorezenavant en corps ne en biens pour le fait dessusdit en aucune maniere mais leurs corps et biens se aucuns en sont pour ce pris ou detenus leurs mettent ou facent mectre a plaine delivrance senz delay en ostant du tout la main qui mise a esté esdis biens. ET pour ce que ce soit ferme chose et estable a tousjours nous avons fait mectre nostre seel a ces presentes lettres. Sauf en autres choses nostre dit droit et en toutes l’autrui. Donné a Monsterviller en Caus l’an de grace MCCC LVII, ou mois de may. Ainsi sign. Autre foiz signee par mons. le duc Julianus. et corrigié par vous. R. Potin.
fol. 7r, n° 9. 1357, juillet, Château-Gaillard. Lettres de rémission pour Jean Le Boulenger et Jeanne sa femme, détenus dans la prison de Caudebec sous l’inculpation du meurtre de Jean Duval. Dest. le bailli de Caux. Par mons. le duc. Ogier.
Charles etc. Savoir faisons a tous presens et avenir que sur ce que Jehan Le Boulengier et Jehenne sa femme nous ont donné a entendre que pour souspeçon de la mort de feu Jehan du Val il ont esté mis en pluseurs de noz prisons de la viconté de Caudebec et ont esté detenuz tous prisonniers par l’espace de an et jour et plus et encores sont en noz prisons de Caudebec, esquelles prisons il ont souffers et enduré et encores sueffrent et endurent a grant poureté et misere de leurs corps pluseurs peinez et travaulz et font de jour en jour ; et combien que les amis dudit mort aient esté adjournez deuement aus assises de Ca[ny] en ladicte viconté pour savoir s’il voudroient aucune chose demander ausdis mariés comment que ce fust ne euls faire partie contre euls par raison de ladite mort et se pour ce les entendoient a poursuir en aucune maniere touteffoiz a yceuls adjo[urne] mens ne autrefoiz aucuns desdis amis ne autres quelconques ne sont venuz ne comparuz qui de ce leur ait ou weille aucune chose demander fors justice tant seulement qui d’office les a fait detenir et detient esdites prisons pour cause de ladite souspeçon. Si nous ont humblement lesdis conjoins fait supplier et requerir que sur ce leur weilliens faire grace et misericorde, nous eu consideracion aus choses dessuz aianz pité et compassion de euls inclinans a ycelle supplication s’il est ainsi ausdis maries ladite souspeçon
Appendix A. Lettres de rémissions 1357 – 1360 254 avecques toute peine criminele et civile en quoy il sont pour raison des choses dessuzdites ou puent estre encourus envers nous en quelcunques maniere que ce soit avons quittié, remis et pardonné, quittons, remettons et pardonons de grace espcial par la teneur de ces presentez lettres et les delivrons a plain desdites prisons et les restituons a leurs biens, a leur bonne fame et renommee et a leur paiz. Si donnons en mandement par ces mesmez lettres aus bailli de Caux et a touz noz autres justiciers ou a leurs lieuxtenans et a chascun d’euls si comme a lui appartendra presens et avenir qu’il facent et laissent joir et user paisiblement lesdis mariés et chascun d’euls de nostre presente grace et contre la teneur d’icelle ne les contraignent, facent ou sueffrent estre contrains en corps ny en biens pour occasion de la souspeçon et autres choses dessusdites en aucune maniere mais se aucuns de leurs biens osnt pour ce pris, saisis, levez ou arrestez si leur rendent et leurs corps pour ce detenuz prisonniers mettent et delivrent hors desdites prisons tantost et senz delay ces lettres veues. Et pour ce que ce soit ferme chose et estable a tousjours nous avons fait sceller ces lettres de nostre seel sauf nostre droit en autres choses et l’autrui en toutez. Donné en nostre chastel de Gaillart l’an de grace MCCCLVII ou mois de juillet. Signé par mons. le duc. Orgier.
fol. 14r, n° 20. Français. 1357, décembre. Paris. Lettres de rémission pour Regnaut Talebot, maréchal, à Rouen, mari de Clémence, et Roger et Robin de Baillemont, fils de ladite Clémence, qui, pour venger les blessures portées à ladite Clémence et audit Roger en leur domicile par Jean Grison, blessèrent celui-ci si bien que mal soigné, il mourut peu après. Baill. de Rouen.
Charles ainsné filz du roy de France, duc de Normandie et dauffin de Viennois, savoir faisons a touz presens et avenir que comme environ la feste de Toussainz derr. passee Rogier de Baillemont filz de Clemence femme de Regnaut Talebot mareschal [citeian] de Rouen fust en l’ostel dudit Regnaut et en ycellui hostel fust venu Jehan Grison meu de male voulenté un coutel tout nu en sa main et d’icelli coutel eust feru ledit Rogier et le navré forment en l’une des espaules. Et aussi d’icellui coutel eust ferue et navree en la main ladite Clemence mere dudit Roger. Et pour ce que ladite Clemence crioit harou sur ledit Jehan Grison pour la force et outrage que il avoit faites audit Rogier et a elle, ledit Regnaut mary de ladite Clemence qui lors se gisoit en son lit oant ledit cri de harou et la noise qui estoit environ son hostel pour lesdites navreures se fust levé hastivement de son lit et eust pris en ses mainz une espee et un boucler et fust venuz en la place ou ledit Jehan Grison avoit fait lesdites navreures et eust trouvé que ycellui Jehan s’estoit d’ileuc partis et s’en fuioit, iceli Regnaut et Robin de Baillemont frere dudit Rogier et fils de ladite Clemence irés des excés qui avoient esté faiz par ledit Jehan Grison ausdis Clemence et Roigier incontinent et prestement en la chaleur du fait et senz deliberacion aucune poursuirent iceli Jehan et principalment pour le faire prendre et mener a justice. Toutevoies iceli Jehan actaint et acousuy ledit Robin meu et courrouciés des navreures faitez par ledit Jehan es personnes de sadite mere et frere feri et navra yceli Jehan d’un coutel en la teste. Aprés laquele navreure les amis des dessuz nommez Regn., Rog. et Robin considerans que en aldicte navreure ne devoit par raison avoir aucun peril de mort ou mehain parlerent aus amis dudit Jehan Grison de bonne paiz avoir entre iceulz et ledit Jehan. Et aprés ce que par le mire qui avoit ledit Jehan en cure out esté rapporté audit Jehan presens sesdis amiz que en ladite bleceure ou navreure n’avoit peril aucun de mort mais qu’il eust en soy bon gouvernement, ledit Jehan et sesdiz amis et lesdis Regn., Rog. et Robin et leurs amiz paceficierent ensemble et demourerent en bonne amistié et acort et quitterent les uns les autres des excés dessuz dis ainsi que lesdis Regn., Rogier et Robin rendroient les despens qui seroient faiz pour cause de la navreure dessuz dite audit Jehan. Et depuiz ledit acort, ledit Grison se soit mal gouvernés comme de habiter charnelment a sa femme boire et mengier outrageusement et a heures non
Appendix A. Lettres de rémissions 1357 – 1360 255 ordenees en suiant les compaignies par les tavernes et en issant la ville et alant aucunes fois a pié et aucunes foiz a cheval et avec ce de son auctorité se fust fait saignier du bras si que landemain de ladite saigniee qui fu le XXe jour aprés ladite navreure yceli est alez de vie a trespassement. Pour laquele cause les dessuz dis Regnaut, Rog. et Robin conbien que euls soient innocens de ladite mort entrevenue comme dit est par le mauvaiz gouvernement dudit Jehan doubtans longue prison et rigueur de justice pour ce que ledit Jehan mourut avant quarante jours depuis qu’il fu navré se sont absentés et traiz arrere du paiz et ne se osent pas bonnement comparoir et doubtent que pour ce euls ne soient appellés a noz drois et leurs biens pour ce fait pris et mis en nostre main. Et pour ce nous ont fait supplier que eu consideracion au cas dessusdit tant en ce que ladite navreure fu faite en la chaleur et doleur que avoit ledit Robin des navreures faites par ledit Jehan es personnes de sa mere et frere dessuzdis et aussi que par son mauvaiz gouvernement l’en dit ycellui estre mort et a ce que par avant euls estoient devenuz bons amis ensemble et pardonné chascun l’un a l’autre ce que euls se povoient estre meffaiz les uns vers les autres, nous leur voulsissons sur ce faire grace et remettre et pardonner toute peine criminele et civile que pour ce pourroient en aucune maniere avoir et estre encourus. Nous eu consideracion aus choses dessuzdites et a la maniere desdiz faiz avons remis, quicté et pardonné et par ces presentez quittons, remettons et pardonnons ou cas dessu[z] dit de grace especial et de certaine science aus dessuz dis Regnaut, Rogier et Robin et a chascun d’euls toute peine criminele et civele en quoy euls pourroient estre encourus envers nous pour les cas dessusdiz et les remettonz et chascun d’euls a leurs bonnes renommees pais et biens. Si donnons en mandement au bailli dev Rouen et a touz noz autres justiciers et chascun d’iceux que de nostre presente grace facent et laissent joir et user les dessuzdis Regnaut Rogier et Robin et chascun d’iceulz et contre la teneur d’icelle ne les molestent ou sueffrent estre molestés en corps ne en biens. Et pour ce que ce soit chose ferme chose et estable a tous jours nous avons fait sceller ces presentes lettres de nostre seel sauf nostre droit en autres choses et en toutes l’autrui. Donné a Paris l’an de grace mil CCC LVII ou mois de decembre. Sign. es requestes de l’ostel. J. Clerici. Maudestour.
fol. 15v, n°22. Français. 1357, décembre. Paris Lettres de rémission pour Roger Benonin de la Cambe qui accompagnant sa soeur avec Laurent et Guillaume les Carelliers de Letanville, beaux-frères de celle-ci, et voulant défendre sadite soeur contre les violences de Perrin Garcy, de Canchy, et de Robert Maugier, blessa mortellement au cours de la mêlée qui s’ensuivit ledit Perrin. Baill. de Caen.
Charles, ainsné fils du roy de France, duc de Normandie, dauffin de Viennois, savoir faisons a tous presens et avenir que de pa Rogier Benonin de la parroice de la Cambe nous a esté exposé que comme il, Lorens et Guillaume dis les Cavelliers de la parroice de Lescauville en la viconté de Baieux et la suer dudit Rogier femme du frere desdis Caveliers venissent de veoir la mere dudit Rogier demourant en ycelle parroice de la Cambe le sabmedi avant la feste de Toussains derr. passé ; et ainsi comme lesdis Benonin et Caveliers convoioient leurdite suer en la menant en l’ostel de son mary, encontrerent Perrin Garey de la parroche de Caench. en ladicte viconté et Robert Maugier, lequel Perrin Garey, meu de mauvaise volonté, voult et s’efforça de prendre leurdite suer et la mener avecques soy pour ycelle violer et en faire son plaisir contre la volenté d’icelle. Lesquels freres requistrent et sommerent par pluseurs foiz a[mi]ablement ledit Perrin Garey qu’il se vousist de ce souffrir et deporter et eulz et leur dite suer laissier aler paisiblement ; lequel n’en volt rienz faire mais dist que leur dite suer li demourroit comment qu’il en alast en soy efforçant a son povoir de la [m] mener. Et en faisant la rescousse de leurdite suer par lesdis freres afin que elle ne fust ainsi villenié en laquele il eust clameur et cry de hareu se mut entr’eulx riot et debat et s’entrepristrent ensemble et fist ledit Perrin Garey audit Rogier
Appendix A. Lettres de rémissions 1357 – 1360 256 pluseurs plaies. Et toutesvoies en ce fait et en la meslee fu ledit Perrin feru et blescié d’un coutel dont mort s’en ensuyvy en sa personne dedans six jours aprés ou environ si comme l’en dit. Pourquoy nous a fait supplier ledit Rogier que envers lui qui est de bonne et honeste conversacion et de bonne renommee et qui oncques mais ne fu diffamé d’aucune malefaçon et qui pour cause dudit fait s’est absentez du pais si comme il dit, nous voulsissiens user de grace et de misericorde. Nous adecertes considerans ledit fait et la qualité d’icellui voulans pour ce encliner a sa supplicacion a ycellui Rogier Benonin s’il est ainsi avons quicté, remis et pardonné, quittons, remettons et pardonnons de grace especial et de certaine science par la teneur de ces presentes tout le fait dessus desclairé et toute peine corporele, criminele et civile que il a ou puet pour ce avoir encouru envers nous et toute amende et confiscacion de biens en quoy il pourroit estre encheu envers nous pour cause dudit fait ou de ses dependences. Et le restablissons a ses biens et a sa bonne renommee sauf le droit de partie a poursuir civilement tant seulement. Mandans a nostre bailli de Caen et a tous nos autres justiciers et a leurs lieuxtenans presens et avenir et a chascun d’euls si comme a lui appartendra que oudit cas ledit Rogier il face joir et user paisiblement et perpetuelment de nostre presente grace et remission et [et] contre la teneur d’icelle ne le molestent ne ne suefrent estre molest[é] en corps ne en biens. Et que tout ce qu’il trouverront avoir esté pris, saisi ou arresté du sien pour occasion du fait dessuzdit eulz le li rendent ou facent rendre et mettre au delivré du tout senz autre mandement actendre de nous sur ce. Et que ce soit ferme chose et estable a tousjours nous avons fait mettre nostre seel a ces presentes lettres, sauf en autres choses nostre droit et l’autrui en toutes. Donné a Paris l’an de grace mil CCC LVII ou moys de decembre. Par mons. le duc a vostre relacion. Rpotin.
fol. 16r, n° 24. Français. 1357, 31 décembre. Paris. Lettres de rémission pour Jean Grenet, gentilhomme, qui pour ce défendre contre les attaques et les poursuites de Guillaume et Michel de La Fontaine, père et fils, a pris des armes et fait plusieurs chevauchées avec ses amis, au mépris des ordonnances royales. Baill. de Caux et vicomte de Montivilliers.
Charles, ainsné filz du roy de France, duc de Normandie et dauffin de Viennois, a tous ceuls qui ces lettres verront salut. Comme si comme nous avons entendu Guillaume de la Fontaine et Michiel son fils par la defiance d’icellui Michiel aient esté de guerre contre Jehan Grenet gentilhomme depuis demi an ença ou environ et encores sont contre la deffense de noz amez et feaulx chevaliers le sire de Preaux et le sire de Montomrency pour le temps capitaine par nous establiz es bailliages de Roen et de Caux durant lequel temps ledit Michiel et pluseurs autres ses complices a armes ont quis ledit Jehan en ses maisons et es maisons de ses amis [ausquels il] ont fait pluseurs injures et villenies. Et ledit Jehan et pluseurs autres ses amis pour euls garder de la force des dessuz nommés aient fait en armes pluseurs cheva[u]chees illicites et deffendues par ordenences roiaux par les queles aucuns dudit royaume ou de nostredit duché n’est tenus de faire ou mouvoir guerre contre autre durans les guerres de mon dit seigneur et de nous. Et pour ce nous ait fait ledit Jehan Grenet humblement supplier pour lui et pour sesdis [amis] que sur ce nous li weilliens pour veoir de remede gracieux. Savoir faisons que nous oye sur ce la relacion d’aucuns de noz genz aus quelles nous adjoustons pleniere foy inclinans a la supplicacion dessusdite audit Jehan et a sesdis amis ses complices quictons et remectons de grace especial par la teneur de ces presentez le portement d’armes fait par euls esdites chevauchiees et toute peine civile ou criminele en quoy euls ou aucun de euls pourroient ou devroient pour ce estre encouruz envers nous. Et en ampliant audit Jehan nostredite grace, octroions a ycellui Jehan que a la tuicion et deffense de son corps tant seulement [senz eu..] d’aucun il durant ladite guerre puisse aler lui dis[.. de personn. ar]mees de sa compa. senz
Appendix A. Lettres de rémissions 1357 – 1360 257 esclande. Si mandons au baill. de Caux et au viconte de Monsterviller et a tous noz autres justiciers ou a leurs lieuxtenans et a chascun d’eulx si comme a lui appartend. que ledit jehan et sesdis amis ses complices facent et laissent joir et user paisiblement de nostre presente grace et contre la teneur d’icelle ne les empeschent ou aucun d’eulx en aucune maniere sur les choses dessusdites ou aucunes d’icelles non obstant quelcomques orden. ou deffense a ce contraire. En tesmoin de ce nous avons fait sceller ces lettres de nostre seel donné a Paris le der. jour de decembre l’an de grace M CCC LVII sign. par mons. le duc presnet mess. G. Martel. Ogier.
fol. 16v, n° 25. Français. 1357, décembre. Paris. Lettres de rémission pour les habitants de Saint-Lô qui pour payer l’entretien des hommes d’armes levés pour la défense de leur ville, ont contraints, en les menaçant de violences, les habitants des paroisses des diocèses d’Avranches et à Coutances, à leur verser les subsides accordés par les Etats généraux pour la défense du royaume. Baill. de Cotentin et vicomte de Coutances.
Charles ainfils [sic] et lieutenant du roy de France, duc de Normandie et dauffin de Viennois, savoir faisonz a tous presens et avenir que comme noz amez les bourgois et habitanz de la ville de Saint Lo pour ce que les habitans de pluseurs parroches assises es diocesez de Coustances et d’Avranches estoient refusant et en demeure de paier aus commissaires a ce deputés le subside de cent feux un homme d’armes pieça octroié a nostredit segneur et a nous pour la deffense du royaume par les genz de l’eglise, nobles et habitanz des bonnez villes dudit royaume et que a cause des ennemis qui lors estoient et encores sont sur le pais lesdis commissaires ne les y povoient par voie ordinaire bonement contraindre, et il avoit certain. quantité de genz d’armes et sergens en ladite ville pour la garde et deffense d’icelle et du pais aus coux et fraiz de ladite ville qui bonnement ne povoient estre paiez de leurs gages et lesdis bourgois et habitans de leur auctorité et senz licence ou mandement de nostredit segneur ne de nous aient envoié pluseurs lettres et mandemens aus habitans desdites parroches contenens que des sommes par eul[s] deuez a cause du subside dessuzdit il se venissent acquitter en ladite ville de Saint Lo en euls menacent que se il ne le fesoient il seroient c[ouruz mors] pris et detenus prisonniers comme rebelles et desobeissans a nostre dit segneur et a nous. Par vertu desquels mandemens et menaces pluseurs desdis habitans des dictes parroches soient venus a ladite ville de Saint Lo et illec aient paié ausdis bourgois et habitans de ladite ville de Saint Lo ou a aucunz d’euls grant partie des sommes par euls deuez a cause du subside dess[usdit] lesqueles sommes par euls ainsi [receues] aient esté tournees et converties ou paiement desdis genz d’armes et sergens qui ont esté en la garde et deffense d’icelle ville et du pais aus coux et fraiz de ladite ville et en soient prest de rendre compte lesdis bourgois et habitanz si comme il dient ; Et pour ce qu’il ont fait ces choses de leur auctorité et senz licence de nostredit segneur ou de nous et contre l’instruccion et ordenen. faictes sur le subside dessuzdit, il se doubtent que par les genz et officiers de nostredit segneur ou de nous il en soient poursui[s] ou approchiés ou temps avenir. Et nous aient supplié que sur ce nous leur vousissiens pour veoir de gracieux remede. Nous pour consideracion des choses dessusdites ausdis supplians et a chascun d’euls avons quicté, pardonné et remis, quictons, remectons et pardonnons ou cas dessuzdit par la teneur de ces lettres de grace especial de certaine science et du povoir et auctorité royaulx desquelx nous usons en ceste partie le fait dessuzdit et toute peine et amende criminele et civile que pour occasion d’icellui euls ou aucun d’eulx puent avoir encouru envers nostredit segneur et envers nous en euls deffendant que dorez en avant il ne procedent a l’exaction des subsisdes ou aides ottroiez ou a octroier a nostredit segneur ou a nous mais que selon les ordenences et instructions sur ce faites ou a faire pourveu que de ce qu’il ont levé et despensé comme dit est du subside dessusdit, il rendent bon et leal compte a ceulx a qui il appartendra. Si donnons en mandement
Appendix A. Lettres de rémissions 1357 – 1360 258 au bailli de Coustantin, au viconte de Coustances et a touz les autres justiciers et officiers de nostredit segneur et de nous ou a leurs lieuxtenens et deputés et a chascun d’euls si comme a lui appartendra que de nostre presente grace il facent et laissent lesdis bourgois et habitans de ladite ville de Saint Lo et chascun d’euls paisiblement joir et user et contre la teneur d’icelle ne les molestent ou empeschent ou sueffrent estre molestés ou empeschés en corps ou en biens en aucune maniere. Et que ce soit ferme chose et estable a tousjours nous avons fait mettre nostre grant seel a ces lettres. Sauf en autres choses le droit de nostredit segneur et le nostre et l’autrui en toutes. Ce fu fiat a Paris l’an de grace M CCC L et VII ou mois de decembre. Sign. par mons. le duc a la relacion du conseil ou quel estoient mess. le mareschal de Bourgoigne et Philippe de Trois Mons J. Blanchet. Lecta per dominum Philippum.
fol. 21v, n° 35. Français. 1358, 16 février (ns). Paris. Lettres de rémission pour Jean de Servon, d’Avranches, qui séjourna à Avranches lors de l’occupation de cette ville par les Anglais et les Navarrais, et annulation de la capture dudit Jean par Perrotin de Poule demeurant à Saint-James de Beuvron, lequel, en dépit des lettres d’absolution accordées audit Jean de Servon par messire Pierre de Villers, capitaine de Pontorson, poursuit devant les tribunaux ledit Jean et ses cautions pour leur faire payer rançon. Baill. de Cotentin et vicomte d’Avranches.
Charles ainsné fils et lieutenant du roy de France, [et] duc de Normandie et dauffin de Viennois. A tous ceux qui ces presentes lettres verront salut. A nous a fait supplier humblement Jehan de Sernon né et demourant a Avranches depuis le temps de sa nativité, que comme il soit homme de nostre tres cher frere le roy de Navarre, simple personne et de petite poissance ; et pour ce quant les Englois vindrent a Avranches tant par sa simplece que par ce que il n’eust de quoy vivre aillieurs demoura en ladite ville et encores y demeure senz ce que en jour de sa vie fust en chevauchié avecques lesdis Englois et les Navarrois qui ont demouré en ladite ville et encor y demeurent ne porté aucun dommage aus subgés de nostredit segneur et pere ne de nous en aucune maniere mais les a aidés et confortez a son povoir quant les Anglois ou Navarrois en prenoient aucuns leurs prisonniers. Et pour ce que il avoit naguerres pla[i]gié Jehan Armillon nostre homme et subgiet vers Guy du Val demourant en la garnison d’Avranches et de la rençon a quoy il avoit mis ledit Armillon lequel Armillon eust laissié encourre ledit suppliant ; et pour ce eust empet. un sauf conduit de mess. Pierres de Villers lors capitaine de Pontorson de Saint Jame de Bevron afin de poursuir ledit Armillon et en le poursuiant fust venu ledit suppliant et pour ce que il ne le povoit [attaindre] ne avoir et que il avoit promis par son serement a se aler rendre a Danfront en Passoys ou estoit alé demourer ledit Guion du Val, ledit suppliant se fust parti de ladite ville de Saint Jame de Bevron pour se aler rendre a Danfront prisonnier en la maniere dessusdite. Et tantost comme il fu hors de ladite ville de Saint Jame de Bevron, Perrotin de Poule, escuier demourant en ycellui ville, l’eust poursui et pris et lui fait jurer estre son prisonnier jasoit ce que ledit suppliant lui deist que il avoit sauf conduit de mess. Pierre de Villers lequel duroit encor cinq jours. Lequel sauf conduit il monstra audit Perrotin, lequel le retinst par devers soy ne depuis ne le voulu rendre et enmena ledit suppliant comme son prisonnier en ladite ville de Saint Jame et ainsois que ledit suppliant peust issir de ladite ville de Saint Jame il convinst que il meist pleige Jaquet de Faloise, bourgois de ladite ville qui s’obliga devant mess. [Jehan] Paynel capitaine d’icell. envers ledit Perrotin de lui rendre ledit suppliant touteffois que il lui demanderoit. Et depuis ce afin que ledit suppliant et ledit Jaquet son plege fussent delivrés du cas dessuzdit envers ledit Perrotin ledit suppliant eust fait appeller a pluseurs termes ledit Perrotin par devant ledit messire Pierre de Villers lequel messire Pierre cogneut de la besoigne si avant que il absoulst ledit suppliant et ses pleges du fait dessuzdit si comme ces choses puent apparoir par les lettres scell. du seel dudit mess. Pierres. Et pour ce
Appendix A. Lettres de rémissions 1357 – 1360 259 que ledit Perrotin est homme de grant linage et de grant puissance et que ledit messire Pierres ne demeure mais esdites parties s’est ledit Perrotin avisé disant que ladite lettre de messire Pierres de Villers ne fut pas deuement passee et afin de la mettre au neant est tourné par devant nostre amé et feal messire Loys de Harecourt, viconte de Chasteleraut lors lieutenant en Normandie et ait empetré lettres surreptices et [teu] des choses dessuzdites par lesqueles il manda et commist audit messire Jehna Paynel capitaine de Saint Jame de Bevron et au bailli de Coustantin et a chascun d’euls ou a leurs lieuxtenans que il alassent avant a contraindre ledit Jaquet par vendue et explectacion de ses biens et detencion de son corps a rendre ledit suppliant audit Perrotin comme son prisonnier ou a paier autele ou semblable rençon comme ledit suppliant peust faire lesqueles lettres sont toutes trenchees senz aucune mencion de celles dudit messire Pierres et senz ce que ledit suppliant ne autres y peust mettre nul debat et en poursu[iant] cest fait ledit Perrotin a fait appeller ledit Jaquet de Faloise plaige dudit suppliant comme dit est devant lesdis capitaine et baill. par vertu des lettres dudit messire Loys lequel Jaquet si est representé a pluseurs termes requerant audit capitaine que il vousist donner sauf conduit audit suppliant pour venir deffendre sa cause, lequel capitaine ne li voulu donner sauf conduit fors a venir tant seulement et pour ce que ledit suppliant n’avoit sauf conduit d’aler et de venir ne se osa representer aus termes mais a certaine journ. y envoia les lettres dudit messire Pierres de Villers par lesqueles il estoit absouls lui et ses pleges envers ledit Perrotin ; lequel de grant hautesse et oultre cuidance dist que ladite lettre estoit faulse et offrit son gage contre ledit Jaquet se il la vouloit tenir pour bonne, lequel gage ledit capitaine receust si li respondi ledit Jaquet que ce n’estoit pas son fait et qu’il n’estoit tenu a s’en combatre mais requist une autre journee a laquele ledit suppliat vendroit mais qu’il en li donnast sauf conduit d’aler et de venir comme dit est ou que se il nevenoit ledit Jaquet plus par doubte que de raison obliga que l’en alast avant sur lui et ses biens si comme il est contenu ou mandement dudit de Harecourt. Lequel sauf conduit ledit suppliant ne peut point avoir fors de venir tant seulement et pour ce ne se osa comparoir a ladite journee pour pluseurs causes espec. que ledit Perrotin qui est homme usant de sa volenté et est du pais de bretaigne que il l’en menroit en son pais ou il peust mourir en ses prisons. Car par raison et pour les causes dessuzdites il ne doit estre son prisonnier. Et pour ce que a ladite journee ledit suppliant ne se representa devant mess. Rogier de Cambray chevalier, lieutenant dudit capitaine et ledit bailli, ledit Perrotin requist que l’en alast avant vers ledit Jaquet jouxte le mandement dudit de Harecourt et en la maniere que autreffoiz s’estoit oblig. lequel Jaquet respondi que il n’estoit tenu a entendre a chose qui fust faite devant ledit messire Rogier de Cambray par ce que il avoit esté du conseil dudit Perrotin en celle cause et que ledit Perrotin estoit son cousin. Pourquoy ledit messire Rogier se leva du siege et ala au conseil dudit Perrotin. Et ce fait ledit Perrotin traist avant une autre commission adrec. a Gieffroy de Rumilly de par ledit capitaine ou il estoit contenu qu’il cogneust de la cause comme lieutenant dudit capitaine en celle partie. Lequel Gieffroy s’efforça de cognoistre en la compaignie dudit baill. si dist ledit Jaquet presentement que ledit Gieffroy avoit esté au conseil dudit Perrotin et estoit son parent. Par quoy il dist que il n’estoit tenu a entendre a chose qui fust faite devant lui, mais le declinoit et senz plus faire s’en parti ledit Jaquet de la court par quoy il fu appellé non comparant ledit Perrotin disant que il ne prendroit pas deffaute ne que en nul plait ne s’en souzmettoit mais requist audis bailli et Rumilly que euls alassent avant envers ledit Jaquet jouxte le mandement dudit de Harecourt et comme autreffoiz si estoit obligié ledit Jaquet lesquels baill. et Rumilli respondirent audit Perrotin que euls en auroient conseil et sur ce assignerent certaine journ. audit Perrotin. Si nous a requis ledit suppliant que comme il soitet ait tousjours esté de bonne vie et renommee et bien weillent de nostre tres cher segneur et de nous dont il est prest de faire foy et qui a sa femme et ses enfans en ladite ville d’Avranches et n’a ne n’oust onques point de demeure aillieurs ne aucune chevance par quoy il peust estre alé aillieurs que en ladite ville d’Avr[a]nches que par nous lui soit sur ce pourveu de remede gracieux. Pourquoy nous considerans toutes les choses dessuzdites et chascune d’icelles et
Appendix A. Lettres de rémissions 1357 – 1360 260 comme aprés cognoissance de cause ledit suppliant et ses pleges furent absols et quittez par ledit messire Pierres de Villers capitaine comme dit est si comme il nous est apparu par ses lettres sur ce faitez de tout ce que ledit Perrotin de Poule leur povoit demander a cause de rançon par la prise de la personne dudit suppliant faicte par ledit Perrotin souz couleur de la demeure faite par ycellui suppliant en ladite ville d’Avranches et aussi contre l’estat du sauf conduit que ycellui suppliant avoit dudit messire Pierres, a ycellui suppliant ou cas dessuz dit remettons et pardonnons de certaine science et grace especial et auctorité royal dont nous usons quant a present ladicte demeure faicte par lui comme dit ets par le temps dessusidt en ladicte ville d’Avranches et toute peine civile et criminele que il pourroit pour ce avoir encouru envers nostredit segneur et quant a ladite prise faite a cause de ladite demeure par ledit Perrotin de la personne dudit suppliant estre et demourer de nulle value et tout ce qui s’en puet estre ensui contre ycellui suppliant et contre ses pleges voulons lesdites lettres dudit messire Pierres de Villers sur ce donnees comme dit est au devant dit suppliant avoir leur plain effect et estre tenues et gardees justement en leurs termes et vertu non obstans lesdites lettres empetrees comme dit est par devers ledit messire Loys de Harecourt [teu] de l’absolucion dudit suppliant et de ses pleges et touz proces sur ce faiz indeuement et contre la teneur des lettres de absolucion dessusdites lesquieux proces nous ou cas dessuz dit mettons du tout au neant. Si donnons en mandement et se mestier est commettons au bailli de Coustantin au viconte d’Avranches et a touz autres justiciers de nostredit segneur et de nous ou a leurs lieuxtenans et a chascun d’euls que ledit suppliant et ses pleges pour lui oblig. ilz laissent et facent joir de nostre presente grace et ne sueffrent yceux supplians et pleges estre contrains ne molestez en corps ne en biens pour cause de la prise dudit suppliant souz couleur de ladite demeure en deffendant de par nous audit capitaine de Saint Jame de Bevron et a ses lieuxtenans et nous mesmes leur deffendons que de molester ou contraindre ledit suppliant et pleges a la requeste dudit Perrotin contre la teneur de noz presentes lettres et celles dudit messire Pierres de Villers dont il app..ra il ne s’entremettent de cy en avant en aucune maniere mais tout [ce..] que il trouveront avoir esté fait ou [..] indeuement au contraire d’icell. au pourchas dudit Perrotin remettent au premier estat et deu et nous par ces presentes lui remectons ou cas dessusdit. En tesmoin de laquele chose nous avons fait mettre nostre grant seel a ces presentes lettres. Donné a Paris le XVIe jour de fevrier l’an de grace MCCCLVII sign. par mons. le duc a la relacion du conseil ouquel estoient mess. le mareschal de Champ. Guillaume d’Ambreville et Philippe de Trois Monz. Jobelin. lecta.
fol. 24r, n° 38. Français. 1358, janvier (ns). Paris. Lettres de rémission pour Guillaume Poiens du diocèse de Lisieux, qui voulant secourir son beau-frère Guillaume Bouffy aux prises avec Guillaume Toustain, blessa mortellement ledit Toustain, et a par la suite obtenu de Nicolas, cardinal au titre de saint Vital, nonce d’Innocent VI, des lettres d’absolution du 25 avril 1357 (transcriptes à l’acte). Baill. de Caen.
Charles ainsné fils et lieutenant du roy de France, duc de Normandie, dauffin [de Viennois]. Savoir faisons a tous presens et avenir que Guillaume Poi[o]ns nous a fait supplier que comme environ l’annunciacion Nostre Dame derr. passee, Guillaume Bouffy, frere de la femme dudit Poiens et feu Guillaume Toust[e]in eussent esté ensemble en l’ostel dudit Poiens ou il buvoient sidre et vouloient jouer a per et a non per et ledit Poions ne le voulu pas. Et par ce s’en fussent alez en l’ostel dudit feu Toustein ouquel hostel lesdis Bouffy et feu Toutestein [sic] par la motion d’icellui Toustein se entrebatirent et injurierent jusques a cri de haro ; auquel cri ledit Poiens meuz d’amour fust alez pour aidier audit frere de sadite femme, lequel Poiens eust pris un baton que tenoit ledit Bouffy et comme courroucié de l’injure faite a icellui Bouffy frere de sadite femme en eust feru ledit Toustein pour laquele chose mort s’ensuit la nuit ainsois qu’il feust jour icellui Poions requerant comme il soit absols dudit fait en tant comme il touche le
Appendix A. Lettres de rémissions 1357 – 1360 261 pechié et lui en ait esté penitence secrete enjoincte par son prelat et que partie ne l’en poursuit ne demande rien comme ce que il ferit ledit Toustein fust fait par chalour et motion de courrouz pour ce qu’il veoit et savoit le frere de sadite femme villené comme dit est et non pas de propos avisé ne defait appensé ; et comme il ait esté avant ce fait de bonne fame conversacion et renommee honeste et non diffamé d’autres crimes, que de nostre grace especial et en tant comme a nous appartient lui vousissons pardonner ledit fait avecques toute peine criminelle et civile que pour cause de ce il peut avoir encouru envers nous et ycellui remettre a sa bonne renommee au pais et a ses biens et mettre au neant toutes informacions proces et banz se aucuns en estoient ensuiz pour le fait dessuzdit. Et aussi que nous vuilliens confermer et avoir agreables les choses contenues es lettres de son absolucion desqueles la teneur ensuit : Nycolaus miseracione ... évêque de Lisieux etc. Et nous considerans le fait et choses dessuz exprimees aians compassion de la maniere dudit fait toutes les choses contenues es lettres de nostre bien amé le cardinal dessuz transcr. loons et agreons ratiffions et approuvons de nostre certaine science et grace especial confermons et en tant comme a nous appartient audit Guillaume Poiens ou cas dessuzdit remectons quictons et pardonnons de grace especial toute peine criminelle et icivle et tout ban que pour cause de ladite mort il peut avoir encouru envers nous et le remettons par ces presentes lettres a sa bonne renommee au pais et a ses biens se aucuns en avoient esté pour ce pris ou arrestez sauf toutevoies le droit de partie en tant comme pour suir voudroit ledit suppliant civilement pour le fait dessuzdit. Si donnons en mandement par ces presentes au bailli de Caen et a touz noz autres justiciers presens et avenir ou a leurs lieuxtenans et a chascun d’euls si comme a lui appartendra que ledit suppliant il facent et laissent joir et user paisiblement de nostre dite grace et contre la teneur d’icell. ne le contraignent ou molestent ou facent ne sueffrent estre contraint ne molesté en corps ou en biens en aucune maniere. Et que ce soit chose ferme et estable pour le temps avenir nous avons fait mettre nostre grant seel a ces presentes lettres sauf nostre droit en autres choses et l’autrui en toutes. Donné a Paris l’an de grace mil CCC LVII ou mois de janvier. Ainsi sign. par mons. le duc al a relacion du conseil ouquel estoient mess. le mareschal de Champaigne Engueran Cuiret et Philippe de Trois Mons. B. Jobelin. Collatio litterar. superius ins.tar. facta fuit cum originali earum dom. per me B. Jobelin.
fol. 27v, n° 43. Français. 1358, juillet, en l’ost devant Paris. Lettres de rémission pour Alleaume dit des Alleux qui, au cours d’une altercation, blessa mortellement à Dreux Jean le Noiri sergent du bailliage de Gisors et qui craignant la justice du comte d’Eu, comte de Dreux, par sa femme Ysabelle de Melun s’est expatrié ladite grâce accordée sous condition d’un pélerinage à Rocamadour. baill. de Gisors.
Charles etc. Savoir faisons a touz presens et avenir que de la partie Alleaume dit des Alleux nous a esté exposé que comme la veille de la feste Saint Jehan Baptiste derr. passee ledit Alleaume aprés heure de disner eust encontré en la ville de Dreux feu Jehan Le Norri sergent du baill. de Gisors, lequel li demanda ou estoit le baill. et ledit Allieume li respondi qu’il ne savoit ou il estoit mais bien cuidoit qu’il estoit en la ville et qu’il ne creoit pas qu’il en fust hors pour ce que pluseurs des ennemis du royaume estoient environ ladite ville pour laquelle response ledit Jehan Le Norri se commença moult forment a couroucier audit Alleaume et pour ce sanz autre cause desmenti et gar[çonna] pluseurs fois ledit Alleaume avec pluseurs autres injures et villenies qu’il le dist lors ledit Alleaume esmeu de [parol] des ordenees que ledit Jehan Le N[ourry] li avoit dictes li demenda se ce qu’il li disoit il li disoit comme Jehan Le Norri simplement et il li respondi que oil. Si avint que ledit Alleaume [a] qui il sembloit que ledit Jehan n’avoit nulle cause de l’avoir ainsi desmenti et garconné et dire tant de villenies par eschaufeture aprés vin frapa ledit Jehan d’un coutel dont il fu navré de laquelle navreure ledit
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Jehan Le Norri mourut dedens VIII jours aprés pour occasion de laquele mort ledit Alleaume a esté ap[p]ellez aux droiz de nostre tres cher et amé cousin le conte d’Eu et a present conte de Dreux a cause de Ysabel de Meleun sa femme lequel pour doubte de rigueur de justice de longue prison s’est absentez du pais si nous a supplié que comme il soit et ait tou[t]jours esté homme de honeste conversacion et de bonne fame et renommee sanz nul mau[vais] reproche nous en ceste partie wuillons avoir pitié et compassion de li. Savoir faisons que nous eu consideracion aus choses dessusdites audit Alleaume ou cas dessus dit le fait de ladite mort avec toute paine corporelle et civille que pour ce il puet avoir encouru envers nostre dit seigneur et nous li avons quicté, remis et pardonné et par ces presentes de grace especial et auctorité royal dont nous usons a present quictons, remetons et pardonnons et le restituons au pais a sa bonne femme et renommee et a ses biens sauf droit de partie a poursuir civilement par ainsi que ded[ens] Noel prochain venant ledit Alleaume sera ten[u] d’aler en pelerinaige a Nostre Dame de Roychemadeur. Si donnons en mandement par la teneur de ces presentes au bailli de Gisors qui a present est et pour le temps avenir sera et a touz les autres justiciers royaux ou a leurs lieuxtenans que ledit Alleaume facent et lessent user et joir paisiblement de nostre presente grace et remission et contre la teneur d’icelle ne le molestent ne seuffrent estre molesté en aucune manere en corps ne en biens. Et en empliant nostredite grace il nous plaist et voulons que nostredit cousin puisse faire audit Alleaume semblable grace sanz ce que ou temps a venir il porte aucun prejudice a li ne a sa juridicion sauf en autres choses le droit de nostredit seigneur et de nous et en toutes l’autruy. Et que ce soit ferme chose et estable a touzjours mais nous avons fait mettre seel a ces presentes lettres. Donné en nostre host devant Paris l’an mil CCC LVIII ou mois de juillet. Par mons. le regent en son conseil. J. Gosse.
fol. 47r, n° 61. Français. 1358, août. Paris. Lettres de rémission pour Jean Painel, capitaine de Saint-James-de-Beuvron, chevalier, et pour tous les habitants de cette ville qui, craignant une trahison de Thomas Pinchon, bailli de Cotentin, garde du château de Saint-James, dont deux beaux-frères Colin et Guillaume Avenel, étaient partisans du roi de Navarre, expulsèrent ledit Pinchon et ses gens du château de Saint- James et en assurèrent la garde pour le roi. Dest. les officiers du royaume.
Charles etc. Savoir faisons a touz presens et avenir que exposé a nous de la partie de mess. Jehan Paienel chevalier, capitaine de la ville de S. Jame de Be[v]ron et des bourgois et habitans d’icelle que nagueres eulz aians presumpcion et doubte que aucuns noz rebelles et ennemis aliez de nostre ennemi et adversaire le roy de Navarre nommez Colin et Guillaume Avenel freres de la femme de mess. Thomas Pinchon, bailli de Costentin, nagueres garde ou chastellain de nostre chastel de S. Jame de Bevron avec les Englois, Navarrois ou autres noz ennemis ou adversaires ne entrassent par la volenté dudit mess. Thomas ou par la suggession de ladite femme ou autrement ledit chastel pour le occuper et tenir contre nous et grever nous et noz subgez de ladite ville et du pais d’environ, mesmement que ja avoient lesdiz exposans requis ou fait reque[ire] audit mess. Thomas et a ses gens qu’il preist des gens d’armes, escuiers, gens de pié et bourgois pour la garde dudit chastel dont il furent reffusans il entrerent de fait et par force ledit chastel et l’ont tenu et gardé et si exposent de jour et de nuit a le tenir, garder et deffendre contre nozdiz ennemis pour nous et en nostre nom et debouterent et misdrent hors d’iceli ledit messire Thomas sa dite femme et ses gens qui par presumpcion et commune renommee du pays sont plus favorables a nostredit ennemi que a nous et de bien et loyaument garder ledit chastel et deffendre pour nous donnerent foy et serment d’eus noz amez et feaux chevalier messire Henri de Tieuville maistre de nostre hostel et messire Henri de Colombiers, commissaire de par nous a visiter les forteresses des bailliages de Caen et de Coustentin, lesquex commissaires leur promisdrent leur faire remettre quict. et pardonner par nous tout meffait pour
Appendix A. Lettres de rémissions 1357 – 1360 263 ce encouru ou paine ou amende se aucune y escheoit. et comme nous aions entendu ce avoir esté fait pour le bien et seureté de nous, de noz subgez de ladite ville et du pais d’environ, si comme sur ce nous a esté escript certiffié et tesmoigné par aucuns aus quelx nous adjoustons plenie[re] foy nous adecertes non voulans iceulz exposans en aucune maniere pour ce estre grevez domagez ou opprimez comment que ce soit audit mess. Jehan Paienel et a touz autres qui en sa compaignie furent a la prinse et occupacion dudit chastel et a tout ce qui s’en est ensui maismement et qui a ce donnerent conseil confort et aide, avons quicté, remis et pardonné et par la teneur de ces presentes de nostre pleniere puissance certaine science et grace especial quictons, remettons et pardonnons tout et quelcunques meffait paine ou amende corporele, criminele et civile pour ce par eulz deserviz et encouruz comment que ce soit ou qui leur pourroit ou aucun d’eulz estre imputee ou imposee pour les causes dessusdites. Et voulons ledit chastel doresenavant estre tenu deffendu et gardé pour nous et ou nom de nous par eulz selon les constitucions et ordonnances que par noz autres lettres avons ordonné. Si donnons en mandement a touz capitaines justiciers et officiers de par nous oudit pais et par tout ailleurs oudit royaume presens et avenir leurs lieux tenans et a chascun d’eulz que pour occasion de ce ore ne ou temps avenir ne molestent, vexent ou travaillent lesdiz Paienel et ceulz qui comme dit est auroient en ce donné confort et iade et autres quelcunques qui audit chastel prendre furent et a toutes quelcunques choses qui s’en soit ensui aient ou puissent avoir esté. Et s’aucune chose estoit actemptee au contraire qu’il le facent ramener tantost et sanz delay au premier estat et deu. Et en oultre s’aucun de leurs corps estoient pour ce emprisonnez ou quelcumques choses de leurs biens prins, saisiz ou arrestez qu’il le mettent ou facent mettre a plaine delivrance sans delay. Et de nostre plus plaine grace voulons et leur octroions que la copie ou vidimus soubz seel auctentique de ces presentes leur vaille et y soit obey comme a ce present original sanz aucun contredit. et que ce soit ferme chose et estable a touzjours nous avons fait mettre nostre seel a ces presentes lettres. Sauf en autres choses le droit de nostredit seigneur et de nous et l’autrui en toutes. Donné a Paris l’an CCC LVIII ou mois d’aoust. Sign. par mons. le regent. Julianus.
fol. 56v, n° 80. Français. 1358, septembre. Paris. Lettres de rémission pour Jaquet Lescot, de Saint-Sauveur les Rouen qui, ayant été maltraité par Colart Tête d’omme et Guillaume Blondel, blessa grièvement Guillaume Blondel, lequel, faute d’avoir suivi les conseils des médecins, mourut de sa blessure trois semaines après. Dest. les bailli de vicomte de Rouen.
Charles etc. Savoir faisons a touz presens et avenir comme les amis de Jaques Lescot nostre homme et resseant de la ville de Saint Saver lez Roen nous aient signifié que nagueres ledit Jaquet en venant son chemin de son hostel a Rouen eust encontré Colart Teste d’Omme et feu Guillaume Blondel de ladite ville de Saint Saver et par bonne amour fussent entrez en une taverne sus la chaucee pres du pont de Saine de Roen pour [boire] ensemble. Et aprés ce qu’il eurent beu se fussent meues et exitees paroles entr’eulz. Par quoy les dessus nommez Colart Teste d’Omme et feu Guillaume Blondel meuz de [grant ire] et male volenté contre ledit Jaquet iceli eussent batu et villené tres grandem[ent] et excessivement et assez tost aprés ledit Jaquet en venant de son hostel a Roen encontre en son chemin d’aventure ledit feu Guillaume Blondel lequel Jaquet courroucié en son cuer et meu des bateures et injures a lui faites par ledit feu Blondel en la compaignie dudit Colart eust dit audit feu Blondel et crié par pluseurs foiz qu’il meist deffense en lui et qu’il li monstreroit que mauvesement l’avoit batu [.....] et sans cause raisonn. et sur ce eust fer[u] ledit feu Blondel d’un coutel q[u’il] portoit deux coups en la teste et navré. Pourquoi de la partie dudit feu Blondel cri de haro eust esté fait sur ledit Jaquet pour cause duquel cri de haro et de ladite malefaçon eust esté menez ledit Jaquet au maire de nostre
Appendix A. Lettres de rémissions 1357 – 1360 264 ville de Roen et par son commandement mis es prisons d’iceli. Et aprés ce ledit Jaquet estant esdites prisons ledit feu Blondel par l’ordenance et commandement dudit maire et a la requeste des amis dudit Jaquet par les mires et cir[r]urgiens jurez et ordonnez en ladite ville de par nous et de par ledit maire eust esté visité et re[mu]é des dites navreures a tres grant et bonne diligence aprés lequel fait par les s[er]eme[n]s d’iceux cireurgiens fu rapporté devant ledit maire ou son lieutenant si comme en tel et semblable cas a esté acoustumé de faire en ladite ville de Roen que esdites navreures ou bleceures n’avoit mort, mehaing ou peril aucun. Par quoi aprés ledit rapport ledit Jaquet eust esté mis hors des dites prisons au plege et caucion d’aucuns ses amis. Toutesvoies combien que le dit Blondel fust si comme par les diz cirurgiens avoit esté rapporté en estat de guerison et sanz peril aucun des dites navreures ou cas ou il eust creu le conseil de ses diz cirurgiens et de ceux qui l’avoient en garde et le tenissent ainsi le dit Jaquet et ses amis et pour bien de paiz eust fait traictier avec les amis du dudit feu Blondel de bonne reconciliacion entr’eulz et du desdomagement des dites navreures et en fussent en son vivant en bon et aggreable traictié audit feu Blondel et audit Jaquet. Et ce fait ledit feu Blondel qui estoit boucher contre la volenté de ses cirurgiens pour le mauvais gouvernement de li dedens III sepmaines aprés le jour de ladite navreure ala de vie a trespassement. Pour occasion de laquele mort le dit Jaquet s’est absenté. Si nous a esté humblement supplié de la partie d’iceli Jaquet que nous li voulsissons faire grace. nous eue a ce consideracion a iceli Jaquet le fait et navreures dessusdites avec toute pene criminele et civile que il pour cause de ce pourroit estre encou[ru] vers nous de grace especial etc. avons remis etc. Si donnons en mandement et enjoignons estroictement a nostre bailli de Roen au viconte du lieu, leurs lieux tennas et a touz etc. que ledit Jaquet facent joir de nostre presente grace. Sauf toutesvoies le droit de partie a poursuir civil. et ses biens si aucuns en sont pris mettent au delivré. Et que ce soit ferme etc. Donné a Paris ou mois de septembre l’an CCC LVIII. Sign. par mons. le regent en son conseil. Robert.
fol. 78r, n° 112. Français. 1358, novembre. Paris. Lettres de rémission pour Pierre Le Contier sa femme et Mahieu Lecointe son neveu emprisonnés aux Andelys pour avoir blessé mortellement Perrin Dammene alors que celui-ci avec son frère, tentait de les assassiner, au mépris du compromis que maître Jean de Trie devait régler entre eux, ledit combat ayant eu lieu entre Fontenay et Guitry. Dest. Le baill. de Gisors.
Charles etc. Savoir faisons a tous presens et avenir que comme Pierre Le Contier et sa fame et Mahieu Le Cointe neveu dit Pierre nous aient fait supplier que comme de certain descort nagaires meu entre ledit Pierre Le Cointier d’une part et Jehan Dam[meine] d’autre part, les dites parties pour bien de paiz en la presence de Perrin d’Ameinne filz dudit Jehan se fussent mis ou dit en l’ordennance et volenté de maistre Jehan de Trie. Et combien que le dit maistre Jehan eust pris en lui la charge du dit compromis affin de mectre les dites parties a bon accort, et que ce pendant le dit Pierre esperast estre en pais et en seurté envers le dit Jehan [Danienne] ses enfans nientmoins ledit Perrin Damvieure filz du dit Jehan en cele journee meismes que les dites parties se furent mises du dit descort en l’ordenance et volenté du dit maistre Jehan de Trie envoya Estienne Lenglois, Jehan Girart et Pierre Guer[eru] en la maison du dit Pierre Le Contier afin de le batre et vilener, les quels y alerent t[ui]t armé. Et pour ce que il ne le trouverent pas a cele fois il le gaitirent et espierent en venant a son hostel entre C[oue]try et Fontenay a jour faillant. Et quant il le virent il le assaillirent. Et sacha le dit Estienne s’espee et en cuida ferir le dit Pierre Le Contier en soy efforçant de le tuer, mais le dit Pierre fouy au cop si que il ne fu pas feru et eschapa de leurs mains au plus bel et le plus tost que il pot. Et s’en vint par devers le seigneur de Fontenay duquel les dessus nommés sont hommes pour soy plaindre et doloir d’eulz. Et avint que a un jour de dymenche sus lavesprement si comme le dit Pierre Le
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Contier yssoit hors de l’ostel du dit seigneur de Fontenay le dit Perrin d’Amemme et son frere qui de fait et d’aguet appensé s’estoient mucié darr. la porte du manoir du dit seigneur pour [murtrir] et tuer le dit Pierre le assaillirent ainsi comme il venoti paisiblement et sanz armeures en son hostel. Et adoncques li uns des diz freres le navra d’un coustel en sa main vilainement. Et l’autre frere qui tenoit une grosse massue et li en cuida donner parmi la teste affin de le assummer. Et avint d’aventure que le coup chei su[s] lez bras de son frere assaillant. Et en la meslee et conflit seurvint la fame du dit Pierre, et commença a crier haro. Et estoit present ledit Michieu neveu du dit Pierre, li quel Micheu fut aussi navré cruelment en la teste par [un] des diz freres. Et le dit Pierre d’un coustel en la gorge. Et quant les diz Pierre et Micheau virent que les diz deux freres ne se faignoient pas de les tuer et murtrir, il se mistrent a defense au miex que il poroit [..] de sauver leur vie. Et avint que en eulz deffendant de mort et en chaude meslee le dit Perrin Damemme fut navrés d’un coustel dont mort est ensuie. Si comme les diz supplians nous ont fait exposer requerans humblement que comme il soient pris et aient esté longuement detenuz en prison a grant misere en la ville de Andeli pour le fait dessus dit par ce que tels cas se delivrent en assises lesquelles n’ont point esté tenuez en la dite ville par lonc temps pour cause des guerres et soient gens de bonne vie et bonne renommee sanz ce que [..] fussent oncques repris d’aucun malefice eue consideracion a ce que le dit fait est avenu en cas de defense et de chaude meslee sanz aguet et appensement et la longue prison que il ont soustenue comme dit est, il nous pla[ise] avoir pitié et compassion d’eulx et a leur pardonner et remettre le fait dessus dit et les faire delivrer de prison sanz attente d’assise, nous adecertes oye la dite requeste euz regart et consideracion aus choses dessusdites, inclinans a ycele aus dessusdiz Pierre Le Contier a sa fame et au dit Micheau Le Cointe et a chascun d’iceulx pour tant que le dit fait le puet toucher avons quictié, remis et pardonné, quittons, remectons et pardonnons le dit fait, et toute paine criminele et civile en quoy les diz supplians puent estre encourus envers nostre dit seigneur et nous a cause dudit fait de certaine science et auctorité royal dont nous usons et de grace especial par la teneur de ces lettres ou cas dessus dit sauf droit de partie a poursuivre [civilement]. Et les restituons a leur bonne renommee donnans en mandement au bailli de Gisors et a son lieut[enant] et a tous les autres justiciers de nostre dit seigneur et les nostres qui ores sont, et pour le temps avenir ser[ont] que il ne molestent ne ne facent ou seuffrent este molestez les diz supplians a cause du dit fait co[ntre] nostre presente grace, quittance et remission d’icelui, et que d’icelle il les facent user et joir paisiblemnet et senz empeschement. Et nous plaist et voulons que le dit bailli ou son lieutenant delivrent de prison les corps des diz supplians senz attente d’assise selon nostre presente grace. Et que ce soit ferme chose et estable a tous jours nous avons fait mettre nostre seel en ces presentes lettres sauf en autres choses le droit de nostre dit seigneur et de nous et en toutes le droit d’autrui. Donné a Paris l’an de grace M CCC LVIII ou mois de novembre. Ainsi signé es requestes de l’ostel P. Caisnot. J. Galli [..].
fol. 87v, n° 131. Français. 1359, février (ns). Le Louvre lez Paris. Lettres de rémission pour Laurent Le Fournier clerc demeurant à Saint-Germain sur Eaulne, sergent de Neufchâtel de Lincourt, banni par les officiers royaux jugé et acquitté par la cour de l’archevêque de Rouen, qui était soupçonné d’avoir tué Jean Noel le Jeune, trouvé mort dans sa maison ou il venait faire la cour à Jeanne, femme de Laurent. Dest. le bailli de Caux.
Charles etc. Savoir faisons a tous presens et avenir que oye la supplicacion d’aucuns des amis charnelz de Laurens Le Fournier clerc demourant a Saint Germain sur Yalne lequel lieu estoit pour le temps qu’elle vivoit a nostre tres chiere dame madame de Valoys sergent du Nuef Castel de Lincourt contenant que comme feu Jehan Noel le Juesne du dit Nuef Castel lequel eu temps qu’il vivoit venoit aucune foiz en la maison dudit Laurens pour decevoir Jehanne la fame du dit
Appendix A. Lettres de rémissions 1357 – 1360 266
Laurens non contrestant que par le dit Laurens li eust esté defendu que il ne venist ne alast en sa dite maison, et pour ce que aprés la dite defense le dit feu Jehannin Noel fu treuvez mort braies avalees sur le propre lit ou le dit Laurens et sa dite fame avoient acoustumé a couchier, le dit Laurens fu approuch. et mis en cause en nostre court de Nuef Castel et en la court de nostre tres chere dame madame de Valois dessus dite en l’assise de Mortemer et car il ne se presenta aus appiaux il fu baniz par noz gens et officiers et aussi par les gens de nostre dite dame madame de Valois. Et pour ce que le dit Laurens estoit et est clerc comme celui qui veust joir de son privilege et soy purgier du dit fait par devant son juge ordinaire, il se rendi prisonnier en lacourt de l’arcevesque de Rouen. En laquele court il fust detenuz prisonnier par lonc temps et appellez les amis charnels du dit mort, enqueste faite et parfaite le dit Laurens tant par le dit arcevesque de Rouen comme comme par son official par sentence diffinitive fu absolz du dit fait ; laquele sentence est passé en chose jugee et fu confermee par nostre dite dame madame de Valois. Et que consideré les choses dessus dites nous vousissions rapeller le dit ban ou bans faiz par noz dites gens et par les gens de nostre dite dame contre le dit Laurens et le restablir au pais a sa bonne fame et renommee et a ses biens. Et avec ce tant par ce que le dit fait est piteable comme pour les bons et agreables services que ycelui Laurens a faiz tant du temps passé de noz tres chers seigneurs ayeul et pere, tant en la ville de Condom comme en pluseurs autres lieux en la Languedoc et tant es guerres comme autrement se aucune peine criminele ou civile ou autre [avoit ou] povoit avoir encourue ou deservie pour la cause dessus dite ou ycell. touchans envers nostre tres cher seigneur et pere ou nous, que ycelle de nostre grace especial nous li vousissions remettre, quittier et pardonner et lui rendre et restablir l’office de sergenterie de Nuef Castel de Lincourt, lequel office il avoit et tenoit par le dit temps. Nous adecertes aians compassion en ceste partie du dit Laurens tant pour consideracion des choses dessus dites comme pour les bons et agreables services que le dit Laurens a fait a noz diz seigneurs ayeul et pere et fait encore a nous de jour en jour si comme de ce nous sommez bien acertenez, les diz ban ou bans avons rappellez de grace especial es certaine science. Et par ces presentes rappellons et mettons au neant, et le restablissons a sa bonne fame renommee, pais et biens. Et en ampliant nostre dite grace toute paine corporele, criminele et civile que le dit Laurens a ou peut avoir encourue ou deservie se aucune en a encourue ou deservie pour le fait dessus dit ou ycelui touchant envers nostre dit seigneur et nous ycelles li remettons, quittons et pardonnons a plain. Et audit office de sergenterie du Nuef Castel de Lincourt lequel le dit Laurens tenoit et exerçoit par avant le dit fait le restituons et restablissions par ces presentes. Si donnons en mandement par ces mesmez lettres au bailli de Caux et a touz autres justiciers de nostre dit seigneur et pere et de nous qui a present sont et pour le temps avenir seront ou a leurs lieuxtenans et a chascun d’eulx si comme a lui appartendra que le dit Laurens dorez en avant en personne ne en biens pour la cause dessus dite ou ycelle touchans ne molestent ne seuffrent estre molesté en aucune manere, mais le facent et laissent joir a plain de nostre presente grace et remission. Et se aucuns de ses biens estoient pour ce pris, saisis ou detenuz que yceulx li rendent ou facent rendre sanz aucune difficulté. Et avec ce royalment et de fait le restablissent et remettent en son dit office de sergenterie en ostant d’icelui tout autre detenteur, lequel nous voulons estre osté et debouté et l’en ostons par ces presentes car les choses dessus dites et chascune d’icell. nous voulons ainsi estre faictes, tenues et gardees et mises a execucion, non contrestant quelconques mandemens ordennances ou defenses ne dons ou lettres empetrees ou a empetrer non fais. pleniere et expresse mencion de ces presentes. Et que ce soit ferme chose et estable a tousjours nous avons fait mettre nostre seel a ces presentes. Sauf le droit de nostre dit seigneur en autres choses et l’autrui en toutes. Donné au Louvre lez Paris, l’an de grace mil CCC LVIII ou mois de fevrier. Ainsi sign. par mons. le regent et aussi comme duc a la relacion du conseil ou quel estoient mess. de Montmorency, P. de Villers, sir. G. de Bruval et pluseurs autres. Berth[eamau].
Appendix A. Lettres de rémissions 1357 – 1360 267
fol. 103r, n° 159. Français. 1359, avril (ns). Paris. Lettres de rémission pour Pierre Bonnart, valet de Guillaume de Villers, écuyer, tenant garnison à Château Gaillard, qui tua sans préméditation à Pressagny l’Orgueilleux Martin Bernard, avec lequel il s’était pris de querelle à cause d’une filet à bécasses, écrasé par les chevaux dudit Bonnart. Dest. bailli de Gisors.
Charles etc. Savoir faisons a tous presens et avenir de la partie des amis charnelz de Pierre Bonnart nous avoir esté exposé que comme environ la feste de Saint Martin d’iver darr. pass. Guillaume de Villers escuier[.] qui lors estoit demourant en la garnison de ChastiauGaillart eust envoié le dit Pierre qui pour le temps estoit son varlet en la ville de Vernon avec ses chevaux a tout la charrete pour les propres besoingnes neccessaires du dit escuier et pour amener certaines garnisons qui estoient neccessaires a ycelui escuier pour vivre ou dit chastel et si comme ledit Pierre retournoit de la dite ville de Vernon avec les diz chevaux et charette en venant droit a la dite forteresce les diz chevaux et charette passerent parmi ou par dessus une roys a vitecos qui estoit ou chemin ou asses pres environ Pressaigny Lorgueilleux, laquelle rois estoit a Martin Bernart ou a un sien voisin si comme l’en [sic] pour laquele chose debat et riote se mut entre le dit Pierre et le dit Martin. Et tant tencerent et rioterent ensemble pour la dite cause que le dit Pierre par chaleur et aguet de l’anemi et qui estoit en celle [heure] chargiez et abevrez de vin feri par mechief le dit Martin sur la teste un cop tanseulement d’un baston qui estoit de fust en telle maniere que de ladite bleceure le dit Martin est alez de vie a mort. Pour quoy le dit Pierre fu des lors detenuz prisonnier et est encore en dure et oscure prison en la quelle il a souff[ert] moult de misere et de poureté et seuffre encore. Si nous a humblement fait supplier que comme le dit fait avenist par mechief et cas de fortune et que le dit Pierre et le dit Martin n’avoient oncques mais en leur vie eu riote ne maltalent ensamble et que le dit Pierres a esté tout le cours de sa vie homme de bonne vie et renommee bien veuillant de mons. et de nous et de la couronne de France sanz ce qu’il ait esté attaint ou convaincu d’aucun autre villain cas ou malefice, et aussi qu’il a servi mons. et nous bien et loyaulment ou fait des guerres en la compaignie de son dit maistre et a entencion de faire ou temps avenir a son povoir, nous li veuillons faire grace et misericorde, nous adecertes consider. les choses dessus et la penitence que le dit Pierre a souffert pour cause de la detencion de la longue prison aians en celle partie pitié et compassion de lui voulans especiaulment en ces saint temps de caresme rigueur de justice estre atrempee de misericorde le dit fait avec toute paine et amende criminele et civile en la quele il puet estre estre encourus envers mons. et nous pour occasion du dit fait avons quittié, remis et pardonné au dit Pierre et par ces presentes quittons, remettons et pardonnons ou cas dessus dit de grace especial de certaine science, plaine puissance et auctorité royal dont nous usons et le remettons a sa bonne fame et renommee au pais et a tous ses biens sauf le droit de partie afin civile tant seulement toutesvoiez par tele condicion que le dit Pierre sera tenuz de faire celebrer chascun jour une messe jusques a un con[tinue] et acompli pour l’ame dudit mort. Donn. en mandement au bailli de Gisors et a tous les autres justiciers et officiers dudit royaume ou a leurs lieuxtenans presens et avenir et a chascun d’eulz si comme a lui appartendra que le dit Pierre Bonnart facent et laissent joir et user paisiblement de nostre presente grace et contre la teneur d’icelle ne le contraignent, molestent ou empeschent ne seuffrent estre contraint, molesté ou empeschié en aucune maniere. Et le delivrent ou facent delivrer de ladite prison se pour autre cause n’est detenuz prisonnier. Et se aucuns de ses biens sont pour ce prins, saisis ou arrestés si les lui rendent et delivrent ou facent rendre et restituer et mettre a plaine delivrance. Et pour ce que ce soit ferme chose et estable a touzjours nous avons fait mettre nostre seel a ces lettres. Sauf en autres choses le droit de nostre dit seigneur et de nous et l’autrui en toutes. Ce fu fait et donné a Paris l’an de grace mil CCC LVIII ou moys d’avril avant Pasques ainsi sign. par mons. le duc present l’aumosn[i]er. J. Le Fort.
Appendix A. Lettres de rémissions 1357 – 1360 268
fol. 106r, n° 166. Français. 1359, septembre. Rouen. Lettres de rémission pour Jean Boucetorte de Glos sur Risle, qui tua Jeannin Le Breton, valet de Jean de Bellaingues, écuyer, huissier d’armes du dauphin, l’ayant pris par erreur pour un des hommes d’armes du parti des ennemis qui tenaient garnison à Honfleur et avaient pris Pont-Audemer. Dest. le vicomte de Pont-Authou, les bailli et vicomte de Rouen.
Charles ainsné filz du roy de France regent le royaume, duc de Normandie et dalphin de Viennois. savoir faisons a touz presens et avenir que de la partie de Jehan de Bou[tetorte] habitant de la ville de Gloz prés de Monfort sur Rille nous a esté exposé humblement que comme environ la Saint Martin d’Iver l’an mil CCC cinquante et sept derrain passé les ennemis de mons. et nostres qui en la garnison de Honnefleu et en pluseurs autres garnisons du dit pais estoient feussent venuz devant la ville du Pont Audemer qui pour le temps estoit en la main et obeissance de mons. et nostre et ycelle par assaut eussent prinse et aprés [ce] chevauchierent par les villes et hameaux prés de la dite forteresse de la dite ville en pillant ardant et gastant tous le pais et par telle maniere que les bonnes gens du dit pais estoient si effraiez et esbahiz que touz ceulx que il veoient adont chevauchier par le dit pais il cuidoient que il feussent de la compaignie des diz ennemis. Si advint que pluseurs des habitans de la ville de Gloz entre les quiex estoit le dit Jehan Boutetorte en icelle sepmaine que la dite ville de Pont Audemer fu prinse par les diz ennemis et que iceulx chevauchoient par le pais d’environ icelle come dit est apperceurent deux personnes a cheval qui app(er)tement chevauchoient sur le dit pais entre les dites villes de Gloz et de Monfort sur Rille lesquiex habitans cuidans iceulx pour la cause dessus dite estre de la compaignie des diz ennemis les suyvirent et prés d’iceulx approchierent pour les prendre se ennemis estoient et euls approchiez d’euls dirent que il se rendissent se ennemis estoient ou qu’il deissent quiex gens se feussent les quiex rendre response ne leur vouldrent mais tous jours apprement et [tost] chevaucheoint pour quoy le dit Jehan s’avança et en fery l’un parmi le col d’un glaive que il tenoit et d’icellui cop ala de vie a trespassement dont il est grant joie pour ce que un des ennemis de mons. et nostres cuidoit avoir occi et tué et l’autre eschapa d’euls. Si est depuis venu a la cognoissance de icelli Jehan que icellui qui par li fu mis a mort comme dit est n’estoit pas Anglois ne ennemi du royaume mais estoit vallet de nostre amé huissier d’armes Jehan de Bellaingues escuier et estoit appellé Jehannin Le Breton et conduisoit adont un Anglois avec li prison de la partie françoise. Si est pour ce absentez du dit pai[c] et est en peril que pour le dit fait s’il estoit tenuz il feust emprisonnez et mis a execucion de son corps et de perdre touz ses biens quelconques. Si nous a fait humblement supplier que comme il soit et iat esté touzjours de bonne vie et renommee et au dit Jehannin n’ost oncques haine ne rancune aucune que sur ce li vueillons estre gracieux et misericors mesmement que pour ce a fait traictier chevir et pacifier au dit huissier pour son dit vallet et li offrir en oultre que s’aucun du lignage du dit tué le vouloit de ce poursuir en aucune maniere il estoit prest de faire a partie satiffacion deue. Pour quoy nous eue consideracion et regart aus choses dessusdites aians pitié et compassion dudit Jehan en ceste partie inclinans pour ce a sa supplicacion le dit fait ou cas dessus d[it] avecques toute paine tant criminelle comme civille en laquelle ou qu’elles icelui pourroit pour ce avoir enco[u]ru envers mons. et nous de nostre plain povair et auctorité royal dont nous usons de certaine science et grace especial li avons quictié, remis et parodnné, remectons, quictons et pardonnons et le restituons a son pais et bonne renommé avecques tous ses biens meubles et immeubles quelconques par ces presentes. Sauf toutevoies le droit de partie a poursuir civilement et non autrement. Si donnons en mandement au viconte de Pont Autou en quelle juridicion le dit fait fu commis et perpetré si comme l’en dit aus bailli et viconte de Rouen, aus procur. des diz bailliaiges et vicontez et a touz noz autres justiciers comissaires refformateurs et officiers quelconques ou a leurs lieux tenans presens et
Appendix A. Lettres de rémissions 1357 – 1360 269 a venir et a chascun d’euls que pour le dit fait le dit Jehan ou cas dessus dit doresenavant ne contraignent molestent ou travaillent ne ne seuffrent estre contraint molesté ou travaillié en corps ne en biens en aucune maniere mais se pour ce son corps estoit prins ou detenuz ou ses biens prins saisiz ou arrestez ou mis en la main de mons. et nostre que senz delay en ycelli cas li soient mis au delivré. Et que ce soit ferme chose et estable a touzjours nous avons fait mettre nostre seel a ces presentes. Sauf le droit de nostre dit seigneur et nostre en autres choses et l’autrui en toutes. Donné a Rouen l’an de grace mil CCC cinquante et nuef ou moys de septembre. Sign. par mons. le duc a la relacion du conseil. G. Barbe.
fol. 109r, n° 177. Français. 1359, septembre. Rouen. Lettres de rémission pour Jean Bachelier, de la paroisse de Perecot [Prétot, aujourd’hui Prétot-Sainte-Suzanne, Manche], qui, pour punir Robin Garin d’avoir sans motifs battu sa femme, avait demandé à deux de ses amis de lui infliger une correction, correction dont ledit Garin mourut peu après, faute de s’être soigné. Dest. les justiciers du royaume.
Charles ainsné filz du roy de France, regent le royaume, duc de Normandie et dalphin de Viennois, Savoir faisons a touz presens et avenir que oye la supplicacion des amis charnels de Jehan Bachelier de la parroisse de Peretot contenant comme en l’annee derrenier. passee feu Robin Garin de fait et senz aucune raisonnable eust batue et villenee tres excessivement et villainement la femme du dit Bachelier en l’absence d’iceli et aprés se feust venue sa dite famme a li et li eust monstré comme le dit Robin l’avoit villainement batue et sanz aucune cause raisonnable en li priant que il gardast son honneur. Et sur ce courrocié du dit fait eust parlé a deux hommes de son amitié en leur monstrant la villenie que faite li estoit en la personne de sa femme ainsi batue et villenee comme dit est, en entencion qu’il le batissent se il le trouvoient sanz le traictier telement que pour ce mort ou mehaing s’en ensuissent. Et assez tost aprés les dessus nommez eussent trouvé le dit feu Robin Garin et l’eussent feru et batu et tant que d’une plaie que eux li firent en la teste par la mauvaisse garde du dit feu Robin combien que pour raison d’icelui cop ou plaie mort ou mehaing aucun ne s’en deust estre ensuy le dit feu Robin dedens trois sepmaines aprés le dit fait acoucha au lit assez tost aprés mort s’en est ensuie en la personne d’icellui. Pour la quelle chose le dit Jehan s’est absenté ne n’ose bonnement comparoir pour doubte de longue prison. Nous consider. ce que dit est le dit Jehan Bacheler ne fu au dit fait ne ne fu de sa volenté ou entencion que le dit feu Robin feust oncques telement batu que mort ou mehaing s’en [em]suist et que par le fait du dit feu Robin et de sa mauvaise garde mort s’est ensuie et que autrement le dit Jehan a esté touz jours homme de bonne fame et renommee et a la cause pour quoy le fait fu fait, li vousissions remettre et pardonner le dit fait et tout ce qui s’en est ensuy et remettre a sa bonne fame et renommee qu’il avoit par avant et a ses biens. Nous eue consideracion aus choses dessus dites a ycellui Jehan ou cas dessus dit le dit fait tout ce qui s’en est ensuy et toute paine criminelle et civile que pour ce peust estre encouruz envers mons. et nous, de nostre certaine science, grace especial et auctorité et puissance royal dont nous usons en ceste partie avons quictié, remis et pardonné, quittons, remectons et pardonnons par la teneur de ces presentes lettres. Sauf le droit de partie se civilement le veult poursuir et le restituons a sa bonne renommee que il avoit paravant le dit fait et a ses biens. Si donnons en mandement a tous le justiciers, officiers et subg. de mons. et de nous et a chascun d’eulx que de nostre presente grace facent et laissent joir et user paisiblement ne contre la teneur d’icelle ne l’empeschent, sueffrent ou lessent estre empeschié en aucune maniere en corps ne en biens. Ainçois se ses biens sont pour ce ou ont esté prins, saisiz ou arrestez, mettent au delivré sanz delay. Et que ce soit chose ferme et estable a touz jours nous avons fait mettre nostre seel a ces presentes lettres. Sauf en autres choses le droit de mons. et de nous et en toutes l’autrui. Donné
Appendix A. Lettres de rémissions 1357 – 1360 270 a Rouen, l’an de grace mil trois cens cinquante et nuef ou moys de septembre. Sign. es requestes de l’ostel. J. de La Roche.
fol. 125v, n° 212. fr. 1359, sept. Rouen. Vidimus et confirmation des lettres de rémission (transcrites à l’acte) accordées le 6 juin 1359 par Guillaume de Sacqueinville, chevalier, seigneur de Blarru, nommé lieutenant general au bailliage de Gisors, en Vexin français et normand et sur les terres de Conches et Beaumont-le- Roger par lettres royaux données au Louvre le 27 février 1359 et transcrites à l’acte vidimé, à Jean de Robes, gentilhomme qui sollicité sept ans auparavant par son cousin, feu Jean Calart, écuyer, de l’aider à se défendre contre les provocations et tentatives d’assassinat dirigées contre lui par Maciot Beladain de Fourqueux, prit part au combat où ledit Maciot fut mortellement blessé. Dest. le bailli de Gisors.
Charles ainsné filz du roy de Franche, regent le royaume, duc de Normandie et dalphin de Viennois. Savoir faisons a touz presens et avenir nous avoir veu les lettres de nostre amé et feal chevalier conseillier [et lieutenant] de nostre dit seigneur et de nous eu bailliaige de Gisors et es ressors d’anciens et nouveaux de cellui bailliaige et es deux Weulguesins françois et normant et par toute la terre de Conches et de Beaumont le Rogier, messire Guillaume de Sacque[nt]ville seigneur de Blarru contenant la forme qui s’ensuit : A touz ceux qui ces presentes lettres verront, Guillaume de Sacquainville, seigneur de Blarru, chevalier, conseillier du roy mons. et de mons. le regent, duc de Normandie et dauphin de Viennois, et leur lieutenant ou bailliaige de Gisors et es ressors anciens et nouveaux d’icellui bailliaige et es deux Weulguess[ins] françois et normant et par toute la terre de Conches et de Beaumont le Rogier salut. Jehan de R[obes] poure gentil homme nous a humblement supplié que comme ja pieça ou temps que feu Jehan Calart escuier jadis filz de feu Gervais[t] Calart chevalier vivoit ycellui Jehan fust en guerre ouverte envers Maciot Beladain pour lors demourant a Fourqueux en la chastellerie de Poissi par daffiailles de [vache] fait l’une partie et l’autre, aprés ce que le dit Maciot injurieusement de felon couraige et meu de male volenté out mise la main au dit feu Gervaisot et a udit Jehan a tort et senz cause et que iceli Maciot en continant le fait de la dite guerre et de leurs [deffiailles] eust assemblé grant quantité de gens d’armes et fust venus es parties de Wulguessin en pluseurs villes et en pluseurs hostiex querre le dit Jehan Calart pour lui occirre, prendre, villener et domaigier en corps se il le eust peu faire, si comme le dit Jehan disoit, ycellui Jehan saichant [l’armee] et chevauchiee du dit Maciot et la grant volenté que il avoit de li meffaire pourpala au dit suppliant son cousin et son ami charnel et li requist que il vousist estre avec lui et le compaigner et conforter a garder son corps et son honneur contre le dit Maciot. Et pour ce faire chevaucha le dit suppliant en la compaignie du dit Jehan son cousin et de pluseurs autres ses amis charnels jusques a ce que environ la Sainte Crois en septembre aura six ans ou sept, ycellui suppliant et pluseurs autres arriverent et vindrent en la dite ville de Fourqueux en la quelle estoit le dit Maciot et environ heure de solleil levant entrerent en l’ostel d’icellui Maciot qui estoit ouvert et yllec trouverent icellui Maciot son pere et pluseurs autres gens et leur coururent [seure] batirent, plaierent et anvrerent en pluseurs lieux, le dit Maciot et son pere et aucuns des autres gens. Et aprés aucuns jours ala le dit Maciot de vie a trespassement et peut estre que icellui suppliant fust appellez par les gens du roy nostre s. a Paris et a Poissy par pluseurs foiz pour soy comparoir a certains jours sur paine de ban, aus quiex jours il ne se comparut point et ne scet se pour ces choses il fust ba[ineiz] ou non. Et pour ce se absenta hors de son pais et se transporta es guerres en Bretaigne et illec servi le roy nostre s. en ses guerres. Et depuis touzjours [continuelment sert] et a servi es guerres du roy nostre dit seigneur et du dit mons. le regent. Et pour ce nous eu regart et consideracion aus choses dessus dites et par le bon rapport qui nous a esté fait de sa personne et que il a par
Appendix A. Lettres de rémissions 1357 – 1360 271 lonc temps servi noz diz seigneurs en leurs guerres dessus dites et encores sert comme dit est, et en tant a servir de jour en jour ce que il a touzjours fait et esté et encores est de bonne vie et honneste conversacion, ce que il ne fut oncques convaincu d’aucun villain cas ou malefice mais a esté subgjet et bien vuillant et est de noz diz seigneur de la couronne du royaume de France et de touz les subgjez d’icellui, nous par le povair a nous donné du dit mons. le regent et ses lettres des quelles la teneur ensuit : Charles ainsné filz du roy de France, regent le royaume, duc de Normandie et dalphin de Viennois. A touz ceux qui ces presentes lettres verront salut. Savoir faisons que nous confians a plain du senz loyauté et diligence de nostre amé et feal chevalier messire Guillaume de Sacqueinville seigneur de Blarru icellui avons fait ordené et establ[e], faisons, ordenons et establissons par la teneur de ces presentes lieutenant de mons. et de nous par dessus et par devant touz autres ou bailliage de Gisors et es ressors anciens et nouveaux du dit bailliaige et es parties de Weulguessin le François et de Weulguessin le Normant et en la terre de Conches et de Beaumont le Roygier a tel nombre de gens d’armes et de pié, archiers, arbalastriers et pa[n]aisiers comme bon lui semblera pour la garde seurté, tuicion et deffense des diz pais et des villes, lieux chasteaux, forteresses et habitans d’iceulx pais. Au quel lieu tenant nous avons donné et donnons plain povair et auctorité et mandement especial de mander et faire assembler et venir a son mandement touz les nobles gens d’Eglise et communes des pais et chascun d’iceulx toutes et quantes foiz que bon li semblera pour avisier ordener octroier, accorder et imposer contreulx et sur les subg. des diz pais teles aides et subsides comme bon neccessaire et proffitable sera pour la garde tuicion et deffense d’iceulx pais et pour paier les gens d’armes et de pié dessus dites demander et retenir gens d’armes et de pié de les faire assembler croistre amenrrir changer, muer et faire cesser toutes foiz et quantesfoiz qui li plaira et que bon le semblera. Et sembl. touz capitaines, chastellains et gens d’armes et de pié estans en garnison es chasteaulx et forteresses, lieux et villes des pais dessus diz et de chascun d’iceulx, de visiter et chevauchier par touz les lieux, villes, chasteaux et forteresses et de les faire forteffier, emparer et garnir de vivres et de artillerie et autres choses neccessaires et de en oster et establir tels capitaines et chastellains et tels gens d’armes et de pié et tel nombre pour la garde, tuicion et deffense d’iceulx lieux, villes, chasteaux et forteresses, comme bon li semblera et aus couz et frez d’iceulx pais a qui il appartendra de contraindre a faire service a mons. et a nous en la guerre en sa compaignie ou autrement es diz pais touz nobles et autres qui y sont et seront tenuz par quelconque voie raison et maniere que ce soit de faire abatre et raser toutes les forteresses maisons enforciees et eglises des diz pais et de chascun d’iceulx qui ne seront tenebles et profitables a yceuls pais soient de mons. ou de nous ou de autres quelconques ou les mettre en tel estat que les ennemis de mons., de nous et du royaume ne les puissent tenir ou enforcier et par la maniere que bon l[i] semblera a faire de mettre et oster toutes manieres de officiers es diz pais de croistre et de administrer establies garnisons de gens d’armes et de pié toutesfoiz que bon li semblera de traictier et accorder avec ceulx qui seront de la partie et obeissance de noz diz ennemis qui vouldront retourner et revenir a l’obeissance mons. et nous de les y recevoir et leur pardonner et quictier et remettre touz meffaiz crimes, homicides, paines et malefices quiex que il soient et a touz autres aussi et de leur donner et baillier sur ce ses lettres teles comme il verra que il sera a faire et que les cas le requer[rent] lesquelles nous confermerons toutes et quantes fois que requis [en] serons de prendre lever et recevoir les proffis, revenuez et emolumens de toutes nos receptes es dis pais et autres revenuez quelles que ellez soient et toutes autres choses qui deuez y s[er]ont et appartendront a mons. et a nous pour tourner et convertir ce que dit est en nos besoignes et en fait de la guerre de establir et ordener es diz pais un ou pluseurs collect[eurs et] receveurs pour cuillir et recevoir les aides et subsides octroiez a ottroier es dis pais pour le fait des guerres et de faire distribuer les deniers qui en seront levez et receus aus dites gens d’armes et de pié et ailleurs pour la deffenses du pais par la maniere que bon lui semblera de p[our]veoir et mettre tele ordenance et remede comme il verra que il sera a faire
Appendix A. Lettres de rémissions 1357 – 1360 272 sur les raençonnemens qui se font es dis pais tant par ceulz de l’obeissance de mons. et de nous comme par les dis ennemis de contraindre et faire contraindre tous les habitans et subgés des dis pais et de chascun d’iceulx a paier chascun selon sa portion, poissance et faculté tout ce qui lui sera imposé et [a...] tout ce que ordené et commandé lui sera par lui ou ses deputés pour le fait des guerres a la seurté, tuicion et deffense de eulz et des dis pais de donner lettres d’estat a tous ceulz qui sont et seront avec lui ou en nostre service [es dis pais] en la maniere qu’il est acoustumé a faire et generalment de faire toutes autrez quelles que elles soient qui a office de lieutenant povent et doivent appartenir et de p[our]veoir en tout et par tout si comme il verra que bon neccessaire et proffitable sera a faire a l’onneur et proffit de mons. et de nous et a la garde seurté tuicion et deffense des villes, lieux, habitans es dis pais et de chascun d’iceulx. Si donnons en mandement par ces presentes a tous les capitaines, chastell., et autrez justiciers, officiers, habitans et subgez des dis pais que audit mess. Guillaume comme a lieutenant de mons. et de nous par dessus et par devant tous autrez es dis pais obeissent et entendent diligeument non contrestant quelconques autres lieuxtenans capitaine et chastell. que mons. ou nous aions establis et ordenez es dis pais avant la [date de ces presentes] et quelconques orden., mand. ou deffens. faiz ou a faire a contraire. En tesmoing de ce nous avons fait mettre nostre seel a cez presentes. Donné au Louvre lez Paris le XXVIIe jour de fevrier l’an de grace mil CCC chinquante et huit. A ycelui Jehan Robes avons pardonné, quicté et remis par ces presentes, pardonnons, quictons et remectons de certaine science, de grace especial tout le fait dessusdit ovec toute peine criminele et civile en quoy il puet estre encouruz envers nos dis seigneurs, leurs officiers et subgez pour occasion du fait dessusdit et le ban se ensui s’en estoit et le remectons et rappellons au pais a sa bonne fame et renommee ovec tous ses biens et heritages sauf la persecucion a partie en cas civil tant seulement. Si donnons en mandemens par cez presentes au bailli et viconte de Gysors et a tous autres officiers, serg. et subg. de nos dis seigneurs et a leurs lieuxtenans que le dit Jehan de Rebes contre la teneur de ces presentes lettres ne empeschent ou molestent ne ne seuffrent estre empeschié ou molesté en corps ne en biens en aucune maniere mais de nostre presente grace le laissent et seuffrent joir et user paisiblement sans aucun contredit. Et se aucuns de ses biens meubles ou heritages ont esté pour le dit fait pris, saisis ou arrestez si lui facent rendre et restituer et mettre du tout au delivré sans delay quar ainsi le voulons nous estre fait et lui avons octroié de grace especial et que ce soit ferme chose et estable a tous jours nous avons fait mettre nostre seel a cez presentes sauf en toutez choses le droit de nos dis seigneurs et l’autrui. Et pour ce supplions nostre dit seigneur et requerons son noble conseil que nostre dite grace il plaise a conffermer, louer et approuver. Ce fu fait l’an de grace mil CCC cinquante et neuf, le sisieme jour de juing. Et nous adecertes les lettres dessus transcriptes et toutez les choses contenuez en ycellez aians fermes et agreables ycelles louons, approuvons ratteffinos de grace especial et de l’auctorité royal dont nous usons a present confermons. Si donnons en mandement au bailli de Gisors et a tous les autres justiciers du royaume presens et avenir et a chascun d’eulz si comme a lui appartendra ou a leurs lieuxtenans que ledit Jehan de Robes facent et laissent et laissent joir et user paisiblement de nostre dite grace et contre la teneur d’ycelle ne le molestent ou seuffrent estre molesté ou empeschié en aucune maniere en corps ne en biens mais se aucuns de ses biens sont pour ce pris, saisis ou arrestez lui mettent ou facent mettre au delivré tantost et sans delay. Et pour ce que ce soit ferme chose et estable perpetuelment a tous jours nous avons fait mettre nostre seel a ces presentes lettres sauf en autres choses le droit de nostre dit seigneur et de nous et en toutes l’autrui. Donné a Rouan l’an de grace mil trois cens cincquante et neuf eu moys de septembre. Sign ; par mon. le regent ; Savig.
fol. 133v, n° 231. fr. 1359, septembre. Rouen.
Appendix A. Lettres de rémissions 1357 – 1360 273
Lettres de rémission pour Jeanne, femme de Colin Goye, courtier de chevaux, qui, lassée d’être battue et ruinée par son mari ivrogne et debauché, laissa son amant Jouen Yngnier assassiner ledit Colin et est maintenant poursuivie pour complicité de meurtre devant les assises de Rouen. les. le bailli de Rouen. par mons. le regent, J. Delaroche.
Charles ainsné filz du roy de France, regent le royaume, duc de Normandie et dauphin de Viennois. Savoir faisons a tous presens et avenir que comme de la partie des amis de Jehanne deguerpie de feu Colin Goye nous ait esté signifié que jasoit ce que au temps du traitié du mariage d’entre le dit feu Colin et la dicte Jehanne, ycellui eust peu ou neant de heritage ne de biens meubles anchois fust courretier de chevaux et eust pou vaillant au regart d’icelle. Et depuis six ans avant la mort du dit feu Colin se fust tellement portez que il eust continué grans compaignies et faites plusieurs foles et outrageuses despenses en despensant et gastant dont li et sa dicte femme se devoient vivre et sievy tavernes et bordiaux de jour et de nuit et les foles et mauvaises compaignies de hommes et de femmes et aucune fois demour[ant] en ycelles par l’espace de trois sepmaines, de XV jours, ou d’un mois continuelment sans retourner en son hostel ; et par les despenses foles par lui faites eust esté par le temps dessus dit escomminchié en plusieurs escomminges par plusieurs fois et ce soustenu par plusieurs annees. Et pour ce denoncié publiquement en l’eglise ou il avoit a coustumé a demourer sanz soy faire absoudre et reconseiller a l’eglise. Et par ce avoit cessié de prendre et recevoir son createur par plusieurs annees a la feste de Pasques notre Seigneur. Et pour cause de la compaignie du dit feu Colin avoit esté denee l’entree de l’eglise a la dicte femme le dit temps durant. Pour lequel malvais portement et pour les foles et excessives despenses par le dit feu Colin ainsi faites et sanz autre cause ou neccessité evidente eust vendu des heritages de la dicte femme cinq acres de terre ou environ de dis et huit acres que elle en avoit. Et en oultre se fust obligies tant par lettres d’eglise que par lettres royaux et autrement a plusieurs personnes en plusieurs grosses et diverses sommes d’argent par les quelles obligacions le demourant de l’eritage de ladicte femme peust avoir esté vendu, dissipé et gasté sanz son fait et coulpe. Et non obstant ces choses quant le cas s’estoit offert que elle lui avoit monstré par belles et amiables paroles que il se corrigast et cessast de frequanter et converser les malvaises et indeues compaignies que il frequentoit souvant et dont peril de corps de vie et d’estat povoit ensuir en sa personne, icellui batue et ferue villainement et desorde[n]neement et par telle maniere que elle demouroit aucune fois en tel estat que comme plaine de desesperance et feme de flebe condicion pour la paine que lui faisoit son dit feu mari. Et la malvaise vie que il menoit estoit en volenté de soy mettre a mort par soy noyer, pendre ou autrement, desirant la mort plus que la vie se ne fust la grace de notre Seigneur. Toutevois eust soufert et enduré ladicte femme, a grans paines et douleurs, la vie, compaignie et desordenance du dit Colin et soy portee comme preudefeme de son corps et ainsi avoit esté tenue et reputee de tous les aians cognoissance d’elle par la commune renommee de la parroisse et des autres plus prochaines, jusques a pou de temps avant la mort du dit feu Colin que il avint que la dicte femme, qui est de fra[i]le nature, de poure et petite vertu, par la malvaise vie que li menoit le dit feu Colin, temptee de l’ennemi, oublia par pechié, non sens et inadvertance son createur et se sousmist au pechié de char en la compaignie de Jouen Yngnier, le quel out a li a faire charnelment. Et depuis frequenta la dicte femme et out compaignie a elle plusieurs fois. Et pour ce que le dit Jouen, qui amoit la dicte femme de fole amour veoit souvant la mauvaise compaignie que li menoit le dit feu Colin et lui en desplaisoit, eust plusieurs fois temptee la dicte femme comme elle se voulsist consentir a querir voye que le dit feu Colin receust mort en lui promettant que en ycellui cas il l’espouseroit apres la mort du dit feu Colin, a la quelle chose elle ne s’eust voulu consentir, jusques a un jour que, aprés ce que le dit feu Colin son mari l’eut batue et fait li asses de paine et de mal, et en oultre la menachant de paroles que il lui vendroit tout son heritage et ne lui demouroit riens et puis la laisseroit poure et deserte et essillié a tous jours, le dit Jouen vint a elle et la tempta derrechief comme elle se voulsist
Appendix A. Lettres de rémissions 1357 – 1360 274 consentir a ce que il meist a mort le dit feu Colin son mari. A la quelle chose elle estans encores plaine de duel et de courous de ce que le dit feu son mari li faisoit souffrir et estans encores en la chaleur de ce se fust absentue a l’inducion du dit Jouen lequel, tantost apres ce, se departi d’elle et en apres comme elle se fust advisee comme ce seroit mal fait de faire que son dit mari receust mort fust tres dolente et repentante de ce que elle s’estoit a ce consentue. Et pour ce, le plus tost que elle pout, parla audit Jouen secretement a part en lui monstrant comme ce seroit mal fait de mettre a mort le dit feu son mari. Et en le requerant que a ce faire ne voulsist penser en aucune maniere et que consentir ne le pourroit. Et a ce eust respondu le dit Jouen et depuis touteffois que elle l’en parloit que le dit feu Colin ne mourroit ja fors que par lui. Neantmoins elle n’osa descouvrir a son dit mari le dit fait pour la doubte que elle avoit de lui mesmement que elle esperoit tous jours a l’en faire refraindre et cesser du tout. Touteffois avint une nuit que la dicte femme qui estoit couchié avec le dit feu Colin son mari qui estoit venu de dehors et se dormoient en leur lit, le dit Jouen, qui savoit l’estat de l’ostel et les lieux par ou l’en povoit entrer dedens, fust entré par une fanestre en la maison du dit feu Colin et en la chambre ou se dormoient le dit feu Colin et sa dicte femme soudainement le dit Jouen et sanz le sceu ou consentement de la dicte femme eust feru le dit feu Colin d’un baston parmi la teste un cop ou plusieurs et un coup d’un coustel telement que au cri et plainte que fist le dit feu Colin se feust esveillié la dicte femme. Et si comme elle out perceu le dit fait eust crié a haute vois harou, et eust monstré touz signes de douleurs que femme povoit monstrer. Mais pour ce que elle out pitié du dit Jouen pour la fole amour que elle avoit a lui comme dit est et que pour ce elle ne vousist pas que il eust receu mort pour le dit fait lui eust dit que il s’en alast ançois que gens venissent qui le preissent et que par la dicte prise il ne receust mort. Des quelz coups et plaie par le dit Jouen ainsi faites mort se fust ensuye en la personne du dit feu Colin mari de la dicte femme. Et sur ce au cri de harou de la dicte feme fussent venuz plusieurs personnes voisins et pour savoir que justice vouldroit sur ce eussent emmené lendemain la dicte femme devant nostre bailli de Rouen pour lors et a lui recité le fait et la verité selon ce que eulz en povoient avoir sceu et enquis nostre dit bailli d’icellui fait et des circonstances et la dicte femme par plusieurs fois interroguee par le dit bailli. Et les dictes gens aussi par maniere de informacion examinés par ycellui, et entre les quelles gens estoit le pere du dit feu Colin, eust esté trouvé par leurs seremens sur ce requis par nostre dit bailli que il ne cuidoient la dicte femme estre coupable en aucune maniere du dit fait ne que fait eust esté par son sceu ou consentement. Et par ce eust esté delivree et s’en fust retournee a son hostel. Toutevois pour ce que depuis peu de temps ença a esté en la dicte ville et referé par aucuns que le dit Jouen, a present absent du pais pour cause du dit fait, devoit avoir dit que il avoit dit plusieurs fois a la dicte femme que il tueroit le dit feu Colin, combien que il attendist et que pour les paroles dessus confessees que le dit Jehan lui avoit par plusieurs fois dictes sur le fait de traitier a mort le dit feu Colin son mari, combien que elle n’y fu consentant, lequel fu tué en Karesme derren. passé, que elle doubte avoir encouru paine criminele tant pour le premier consentement comme pour ce que elle n’en avoit avisié le dit feu Colin son mari afin de estre sen garde et que elle avoit fait absenter le dit Jouen, qui bien peust avoir esté arresté se elle pour lors eust bien fait son devoir, afin que il ne fust pris et que pour cause de ce il ne receust mort. Et pour doubte de longues prisons avoir et soustenyr pour ces choses se soit absentee ne n’ait osé bonnement compar[oi]r au pais par quoy elle a esté mise en adjournemens et appellee en noz assises a Rouen aus drois de mons. et de nous. Supplient les diz amis que nous, eue consideracion aus choses dessus dictes, voulsissions a la dicte femme remettre et pardonner le dit fait en tant comme elle en est coulpable comme dessus est dit et lui remettre et pardonner toute paine criminele et civile en quoy elle pourroit estre encourue a cause de ce comme que ce fust et elle restituer au pais a sa bonne renommee que elle avoit par avant et a ses biens. Nous eue consideracion aux choses dessus dites, a la dite Jehanne le dit fait ou cas dessus dit en tant comme elle en est ou peust estre coulpable avons quitté, remis et pardonné, quittons, remettons
Appendix A. Lettres de rémissions 1357 – 1360 275 et pardonnons par ces presentes de nostre grace especial, certaine science, pleniere puissance et auctorité royal dont nous usons avecques toute paine corporele, criminele et civile que pour cause du dit fait elle pourroit estre encourue envers nostre dit seigneur et nous et la restablissons a sa feme et renommee a son pais et biens que elle avoit par avant. Et en ampliant nostre dicte grace ou cas ou elle ne pourroit enseignier ou enfourmer d’aucunes des choses par ses amis a nous exposees pour ce que elles auroient esté dictes [c]element ou si appart et senz gens que elle ne pourroit enseigner plainement nous voulons et lui avons ottroié que de ce que elle pourra enseignier par commune renommee ou par son serement que elle soit en ycellui cas receue sanz autre enseignement faire et que nostre grace lui vaille en ycellui cas comme se elle enseignoit plainement sauf toutevois le droit de partie se civilement le veulst poursuir et lui pardonnons tous deffaus qui pourroient estre pris contre lui en noz assises pour cause de l’appel d’icelle sur le fait dessus dit. Si donnons en mandement au bailli de Rouen et a tous autres justiciers de mons. et nous presens et avenir et a leurs lieux tenans et a chascun d’eulx que de nostre presente grace facent et lassent joir paisiblement et user la dicte Jehan [sic] Et contre la teneur d’icelle ne l’empeschent, conttraingnent ou molestent ne ne sueffrent estre empesch., molestee ou c[ontrainte] en aucune maniere en corps ne en biens pour la cause dessus dite. Et se aucuns de ses biens ont pour ce esté pris, saisis ou arrestez si les mettez au delivré tost et sanz delay. Et que ce soit ferme chose et estable a touz jours nous avons fait mettre nostre seel a ces presentes sauf le droit de mons. et de nous en en autres choses. Et en toutes autres l’autrui. Donné à Rouen l’an de grace mil CCC cinquante nuef au mois de septembre. Sign. par mons. le regent. J. de La Roche.
fol. 191r, n° 302. Fr. 1360, mai. Paris. Lettres de rémission pour Jean Pigache qui menacé et maltraité chez lui par Geffroy Lelievre, son cousin germain et son invité, le tua d’un coup de baton sur la tête, ladite remission accordée sous condition pour ledit Pigache de faire deux mois de prison dans les prisons du vicomte d’Auge. Dest. le bailli de Rouen et le vicomte d’Auge. Es requestes de l’ostel. Montagu.
Charles etc. Savoir faisons a touz presens et avenir que si comme nous avons entendu par la supplicacion de Jehan Pigache contenant que comme le dimanche devant la Saint Pierre en [fevrier] derr. pass. Geffroy Le Lieure cousin germain du dit suppliant fust par amitié et affinité venu disner au regart de la femme du dit suppliant en sa maison, et aprés disner eust dit que il demorroit a souper et y demoura et fist le dit suppliant au dit Geffroy et aplusieurs autres ses amis qui y furent bonne chiere. Et aprés ce que le dit Geuffroy ot soupé et esté tout aise en la maison du dit suppliant et que il ot bien beu, il non recognoissant la grant amitié et bonne chiere que le dit suppliant lui avoit faite, senz ce que il eust meffait ne mesdit lors ne autreffoiz au dit Geffroy, il commença a murmurer au dit suppliant en li disan[t] senz cause pluseurs grosses paroles et villenies en l’appellant par pluseurs foiz et en presence de pluseurs personnes honnestes larron, mauvais et traictre, et combien que le dit suppliant l’apaisast et deportast oultre raison pour cause d’amistié et de ce qu’il estoit en sa maison comme dit est et que il souffrist de lui tant comme il povoit ; toutevoies le dit Geffroy par son courage s’efforçoit touzjours de li dire et multiplier paroles injurieuses et contumelieuses et de diffamer en esmouvant et eschaufant touzjours le dit suppliant et non content de ce ycellui Geuffroy meu de felon couraige feri du poing en la teste le dit suppliant et puis le prist par sa poitrine et le sacha aterre et traina hors de sa maison en loy batant de piez et de poings et li rompi et dessira touz ses drapeaux ; le quel suppliant se releva aux miex qu’il pot et en doubtant force par force prist un baton[net] que il trouva prés de lui et en fery le dit Geffroy un cop sur la teste ; le quel chey vers la temple du quel cop mort du dit Geffroy s’en ensui[vi] sanz ce que le dit suppliant et le dit Geuffroy eussent aucune ancienne hayne ou rancune ensemble mais estoient cousins et
Appendix A. Lettres de rémissions 1357 – 1360 276 amis ensemble et compaignoient souvent l’un a l’autre pour la quele chose le dit suppliant doubtant rigueur de justice s’est absentez et delaissié sa femme et enfens en grant misere et pouvreté si comme il dit. Et pour ce nous a humblement supplié que comme il ait tousjours esté homme de bonne vie, renommee et conversacion honneste sanz avoir oncques esté reprins d’aucun crime ou delit, et le dit Geuffroy feust homme brigueux noiseux et mal renommé, nous vueillons au dit suppliant estre gracieux et misericors. Nous consideré ce que dit est a icellui Jehan avons quictéi, remis et pardonné et par ces presentes quictons, remectons et pardonnons ou cas dessus dit de grace especial, plaine puissance et auctorité royal de mons. dont nous usons a present le fait dessus dit avec toute paine corporele, criminele et civille que pour cause et occasion des choses dessus dites il pourroit avoir encouru envers mons. et nous. En le restituant et remettant a sa bonne renommee a son pais et a ses biens, sauf le droit de partie a poursuivre civilement pourveu toutevoies que pour aucune penitence il tendra prison honneste en noz prisons en la viconté d’Auge par deux moys seulement. Sy donnons en mandement au baillif de Rouen et viconte d’Auge et a touz noz autres justiciers, officiers et subg. qui a present sont et pour le temps avenir seront que le dit Jehan de nostre presente grace facent et laissent joir et user paisiblement et contre la teneur d’icelle ne le molestent ou contraingnent ou seuffrent estre contraint ou molesté en aucune maniere mais s’aucuns de ses biens estoient pour ce prins, saisiz ou arrestez levez et emportez que il li rendent et delivrent tout a plain tantost et sanz delay ou empeschement aucun. Et que ce soit ferme chose et estable a touzjours nous avons fait mettre nostre seel a ces presentes lettres. Sauf en autres choses le droit de mons. et de nous et en toutes l’autrui. Donné a Paris l’an de grace mil CCC soixante ou moys de may souz le seel de Chastellet de Paris en l’absence du nostre grant. Sign. es requetes de l’ostel. Montagu.
fol. 195r, n° 307. 1360, août. Paris. Lettres de rémission pour Jean Potier l’Aîné, de Saint-Gilles de Cotentin, qui pour résister aux Anglais fit partie de la garnison de Coutances, et à ce titre, rançonna et pilla le plat pays et détroussa entre autres, un marchand portant du billon en Bretagne. Dest. les bailli de Cotentin et vicomte de Coutances. Per consilium existens Parisius. Dyonisius.
Charles etc. Savoir faisons a touz presens et avenir que de la partie Jehan Potier l’Ainsné de la parroisse Saint Gile en Coustentin, nous a esté exposé que comme depuis que les guerres commencerent ou pays de Coustentin et que mess. Philippe de Navarre eut amené les Englois en ycellui pays toutes les villes aient esté raençonn. aus diz Anglois et aus Navarrois et ait convenu les bons, vraiz et loyaulx françois retraire en fors et bonnes villes et guerpir leurs maison, habitacions et heritages et souffrir moult de pouretez et de meschiez. Et il soit ainsi ue le dit exposant volant garder sa loyauté envers mons. et nous se feust retrait en nostre bonne ville de Coustances et pour aidier a garder le fort d’icelle ville et pour la seurté, tuicion et defense d’icelle eust esté retenu aus gaiges avecques les autres soudoiers par le capitaine de la dite ville et depuis y ait demouré et touteffois que les compaignons de la garnison de la dite ville ont chevauchié contre les ennemis pour les grever et dommager ait chevauchié en leur compaignie et aussi quant il ont chevauchié sur le plat pays et sur les villes raençonn. ait chevauchié avecques eulz et ait prins des vivres et autres choses neccessaires pour la sustentacion de son corps comme faisoient les autres sur les villes raençonn. et gens du plat pays. ET en une des chevauchieez q. firent les compaignons dudit fort eust eu en la dite ville de Saint Gile un homme mis a mort en la quele comp. n’estoit par lors le dit exposant mais estoit demouré ou dit fort de Co[n]stanc. mais touteffoiz par haine ou autrement sanz cause raisonnable aucuns ses malveillans l’ont accusé devers justice du dit murtre combien qu’il en soit pur et innocent et avecques ce entre les chevauchieez que firent les diz compaignons le dit exposant estant en leur compaignie eussent trouvé assez prés de S. Lo un marchant qui portoit
Appendix A. Lettres de rémissions 1357 – 1360 277 billon es monn. de Bretaigne et delaissoit noz monn. et l’eussent arresté et osté son billon ; lequel depuis lui fu rendu excepté certaine quantité que les diz compaignons en burent, sanz ce que le dit exposant en eust onques riens, mais confessa le dit marchant devant un tabellion publique qu’il n’en avoit rien eu et l’en quittoit mais toutesfoiz un des diz compaignons pour la dite cause fu arresté en Bretaigne a la requeste dudit marchant, lequel accusa le dit exposant et ycellui exposant qui a esté touz les temps de sa vie bon vray et loyal envers mons., nous et la couronne de France, homme de bonne vie, renommee et honeste conversacion se doubte que pour les choses dessus dites il ne soit ou temps avenir poursui par justice a l’instifgacion d’aucuns ses malveillans ou autrement. Si nous a humblement supplié comme nous aions fait remission general de toutes pilleriez, roberies et autres semblables malefices faiz depuis les guerres encommenciees pour nourrir paix et amour entre les subgiez du dit royaume et aussi comme il ait moult perdu a cause des dites guerres et ait esté prisonnier des ennemis et mis a grans et excessives raençons q. sur ce nous li vveilliens faire grace et pardon mesmement comme il ne feust onques a faire murtre de vray et loyal françois et obeissant a mons. et a nous ne a revissement de femme si comme il dit, nous volans pitié et misericorde preferer a rigueur de justice audit exposant de grace especial et auctorité royal dont nous usons avons quictié, remis et pardonné, quictons, remectons et pardonnons ou cas dessus dit toutes les pilleries, roberies et autres choses dessus dites avecques toute paine criminele et civile que pour occasion de ce il pourroit avoir encouru envers mons. et nous sauf le droit de partie afin civile seulement. Et le [restabillons] a sa bonne fame et renommee se pour occasion de ce elle est en aucune maniere bleciee. Si donnons en mandement au bailly de Cousten. et viconté de Coustan. et a touz autres justiciers dudit royaume ou a leurs lieux tenans et a chascun d’eulz si comme a lui appartendra que le dit expoxant facent et laissent joir et user paisiblement de nostre presente grace et contre la teneur d’icelle ne le molestent ou empeschent en corps ne en biens mais se pour occasion de ce aucuns de ses biens sont prins, saisiz ou arrestez qui les lui rendent et mettent au delivré tantost et sanz delay, et que ce soit ferme chose et estable a touz jours nous avons fait mettre nostre seel a ces lettres. Sauf en toutes choses le droit de mons. et le nostre et l’autrui en toutes. Donné a Paris l’an de grace M CCC LX ou mois d’aoust. Sign. per consilium exns. Par. Dyonis.
Appendix B. Decision tree for information-structural annotation 278
Appendix B. Decision tree for information-structural annotation (integrally taken from Steiner 2014: 92-95). Topic—for every discourse referent that is a verbal argument; There may be as many as 3 topics in a clause or as few as zero. Each type of topic may only occur once per clause. a. Is the purpose of the entire sentence to present a new event or entity to the discourse (i.e. then it happened that… or a man entered the room)? i.Yes: this sentence is thetic and has no topic; proceed directly to Focus decisions ii.No: go to b b. Is the referent new to the discourse (as determined in the Information Status tree)? i. Yes: go to c ii. No: go to d c. Is the referent grounded in some entity that is identifiable and familiar (i.e. an X of mine)? i. Yes: go to d ii. No: this element is not a topic; proceed to the Focus decision tree. d. Is the referent indefinite or quantified in an indefinite manner (i.e. Some of the men…)? i. Yes: this element is not a topic; proceed to the Focus decision tree. ii. No: go to e e. Does the rest of the sentence provide information about the given referent (i.e. would the sentence be a natural continuation of ‘Let me tell you about X’ or ‘As for X’)? i. Yes: go to f ii. No: this element is not a topic; proceed to the Focus decision tree. f. Is the referent contrasted to an explicitly stated constituent that is a) in a syntactically or semantically parallel construction and b) also a topic? i. Yes: label as CONTRASTIVE ii. No: go to g g. Is the referent an incremental answer to the question under discussion (e.g. Bryan and Thomas in the following: {what did the children do?} Bryan played soccer and Thomas read.) i. Yes: label as CONTRASTIVE ii. No: go to h h. Is the referent either newly established or reintroduced as what an utterance in the discourse is about? i. Yes: label as ABOUTNESS ii. No: go to i i. Is this referent co-referential with the most recent Aboutness Topic (as described in F)? i. Yes: label as FAMILIAR ii. No: label as ABOUTNESS If the referent does not fit any of the above labels, it is not a Topic
Focus—for every non-Topic, non-Frame-setting constituent (including subordinate clauses). Focus may occur in thetic clauses. There may be multiple Foci per clause. Note, not all new information will be focused. Always keep the discourse in mind as you code. a. Would the element in question correspond to the wh-element in a question that would elicit the statement as a response? (e.g. {What did the children eat?} They ate apples.) i. Yes: go to b ii. No: this element is not a Focus b. Is the referent contrasted to an explicitly stated constituent that is a) in a syntactically or semantically parallel construction and b) also a focus? i. Yes: label as CF
Appendix B. Decision tree for information-structural annotation 279
ii. No: go to c c. Does the element modify existing information (e.g. {Were you driving fast?}I was driving VERY fast or {Which car did you hit} I hit the blue car)? i. Yes: label as NIF ii. No: go to d d. Is the information provided new to the discourse, especially new information with respect to the topic? i. Yes: label as NIF ii. No: return to a; this element may not be a focus
Frame-Setting—for all AdvP, PP, and subordinate clauses. May occur in thetic clauses. a. Does the element specify the time or location of the discourse actions? i. Yes: label as FS ii. No: go to b b. Is the element in a causal relationship with the utterance? i. Yes: label as FS ii. No: go to c c. Does the element serve to restrict the utterance in a way that is not already present in the context or discourse? i. Yes: label as FS ii. No: go to d d. Does the truth-value of the utterance hinge upon the truth-value of the element? i. Yes: label as FS ii. No: go to e e. Does the element cause the truth-value of the utterance to be contingent on the previous discourse? i. Yes: label as FS ii. No: return to a; this element may not be a Frame-Setter